§ SIR JOSEPH PEASE (Durham, Barnard Castle)said, he wished to make an appeal to the Speaker on a personal matter of a peculiar nature. It would be remembered that yesterday, when the House went into Committee on the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors on Sunday Bill, he undertook at once not to proceed, but to ask that the Committee should report Progress. When the question was put to him as to what date he would take the Committee again he said Friday, the 7th May. In that view he was corroborated by the hon. Members who sat around him; but on looking at the Votes this morning he found the date mentioned as Friday, the 7th June. There was no Friday, June 7; but the Clerks at the Table had, in a revised edition of the Order Book, put the Bill down for Friday, June 4. He wished to know whether the Speaker could not by the exercise of his authority alter the date as previously mentioned, he giving an undertaking to communicate with all Members who had Amendments against the Bill, and arranging with them not to proceed until June without their consent?
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, it would not be within his duty to alter the date. The date had been deliberately named by him from the Chair, and taken down by the Clerk at the Table. It was quite true that there was no Friday falling on June 7; but as an impression had gone forth that the Bill would be taken on that date, he would suggest that it might be fair to take the Bill on the Friday nearest to that date.