RESOLUTION. (Hansard, 15 July 1884)

§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT
wished to say one or two words upon this very serious question. It was his belief that never before had the Government asked that Tuesdays and Wednesdays be granted them for Supply as well as for the transaction of their other Business. He quite admitted that this was a particular and perhaps an exceptional Session; but there was no precedent for the course proposed to be adopted. Monday was for some time the only day given up absolutely to Supply. Thursday was afterwards added, and now they were asked to give up Tuesdays and Wednesdays in addition. All he wished to say was that if Government were to have this privilege granted to them towards the end of the Session, the House would really have no guarantee that Supply was to be properly and fairly discussed in the earlier part of the Session. He hoped that the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), who took a strong view with regard to these questions, would have something to say upon the Motion. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) felt that a full discussion upon the Army and Navy was absolutely necessary every year in the interests of the country; because, unless Government were kept up to the mark with regard to the expenditure on the Services, the efficiency of both Forces must be impaired, and they would soon fall behind those of foreign nations. He thought the present proposal an innovation which ought not to be placed upon the records of their proceedings, without at the same time placing on record a strong and strenuous protest against the proposal of the Government being made a precedent in future years, and also against this mode of putting off to the end of the Session discussions on Supply which ought to take place at a much earlier period.

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT
observed that the hon. and gallant Gentleman was perfectly in his right in entering a protest against the present proposal of the Government being regarded as a precedent to be followed in other Sessions. He quite agreed that it was important that the Estimates should be discussed at an earlier period of the Session; and he could assure the hon. and 1134 gallant Gentleman that the Government had no desire to set up a precedent under which the Estimates would be brought on at a late period of the Session at the expense of the rights of private Members. It was, however, imperative that Supply should be proceeded with without delay under present circumstances.

MR. J. LOWTHER
wished that it should be clearly understood that, in giving his cordial support to the Government proposal, he was influenced by their distinct assurance that they intended to devote the time yielded to them by private Members to the necessary work of winding up the Session, and not to other purposes.

§ MR. NEWDEGATE
said, he was extremely glad that his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) had called attention to this subject; because Her Majesty's Government, with the support of their followers, had managed to become the monopolists, as the sole originators of legislation in that House. They had introduced a greater number of measures than even, under ordinary circumstances, there would have been any reasonable prospect of their carrying. By this means they precluded independent Members from the hope of obtaining the attention of the House. They thus drove independent Members to the end of the Session; and when the end of the Session came, having proposed a revolutionary measure, which had not received "elsewhere" the blind acceptance which they hoped, they now pursued the arbitrary system of acquiring a monopoly of the time of the House. They not only proposed to appropriate the time allotted to hon. Members, who were not Members of the Government, for the remainder of the Session; but they proposed to summon Parliament to a special Session, with the understanding that the time of this special Session should be exclusively their own. He had never known any Administration pursue this system of monopolizing the time of the House to the extent that Her Majesty's present Ministers had done. Early in the Session they obtained leave to have Morning Sittings on Tuesdays and on Fridays; the inevitable effect of the House sitting from 2 o'clock until 7 o'clock in the evening, for the consideration of Government Business, was that the House was tired and exhausted, and 1135 was not prepared to assemble for the consideration of the Business proposed by independent Members on the evenings of Tuesdays and Fridays. He was glad to find that his hon. Friend below him and other hon. Members supported that opinion. It must be obvious that, if the Morning Sittings were appropriated by the Government on Tuesdays and Fridays, the Evening Sittings would fail the independent Members; and therefore, practically, the independent Members would be deprived of the Tuesdays and Fridays appropriated to them by the Standing Orders, because the mornings of those days were required by the Government for their Business. He could not believe that unofficial Members opposite did not admit how sterile the Session had been for their own proposals of legislation. After what had fallen from an hon. Member on the Conservative side (Mr. MacIver) with respect to the Merchant Shipping Bill, which remained on the Books for next day, and in view of the other Notices, it was obvious that the House was not quite unconscious of the discredit and the danger of having all its time monopolized by the Government.

§ MR. RYLANDS
said, he hoped that next Session the intentions of the Government might be carried out, and that there would be an effective dealing with Supply before the House was exhausted—perhaps by strong Committees investigating important branches of expenditure. In view of an Autumn Session, however, he should support the Government proposal as an exceptional one.

§ MR. DILLWYN
thought that the assurance of the Home Secretary should be emphasized by a record in the Journals of the House. He was, however, afraid that this unusual proposal of the Government would be converted into a precedent in future Sessions; and, therefore, he moved to amend the Motion by inserting after the word "That," the words, "in view of an Autumn Session," which would show that the occasion was exceptional, and that the Motion was not to be regarded as a precedent.

MR. GLADSTONE
said, he hoped that his hon. Friend would withdraw his Amendment. There would be great inconvenience caused by the insertion of these words; and he thought the position was perfectly safe without them. He would repeat the declaration of the Home Secretary. There was no doubt that it was on the ground of special circumstances that the Government proposed to give precedence to Supply on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. He would submit that as a matter of formal procedure it would be open to just objection that at the present moment, when they did not know what might happen, they should speak of an Autumn Session, which, after all, might not take place.

§ MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT
thought that the House should decline to grant the extraordinary facilities. The Government had taken from private Members Morning Sittings in May and June in order to pass certain measures; and now, at the close of the Session, they abandoned those measures for no other purpose except to raise a cry against the House of Lords. If they had asked for the facilities now demanded in order to go on with these measures they might have had a good case; but, in his opinion, the fact that they had made a clean sweep of about a score of Bills was a just ground for refusing the extraordinary privileges now asked. He thought that the financial proposals made to the Great Powers with regard to Egypt should be laid before the House. He wished to know from the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in case the labours of the Conference were not brought to a conclusion by the time Parliament was prorogued, the promise of the Government that the proposals laid before the Conference were not to bind this country unless they received the sanction of Parliament would hold good next Session or in the next Parliament?

§ MR. DILLWYN
intimated that, after the declaration of the Prime Minister, he would withdraw his Amendment.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
regretted that no one had the courage to oppose the Motion of the Prime Minister. If no one else would do so, he would divide against the Motion. He protested against the habit of the present Government in 1137 putting off Supply to the end of the Session. The only consequence of the appropriation of the whole time of the House by the Government had simply been a theatrical abandonment of all their measures with a view to a General Election.