PARLIAMENT—ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE. (Hansard, 27 May 1886)

§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL (Paddington, S.)

I wish, Sir, on this Order to make a suggestion which will, I think, secure unanimous support from all quarters of the House. There is no Business of great importance on the Order Book to-night which could be proceeded with at this hour with advan- 296 tage, and I take this opportunity of bringing before this House a subject which, I think, must exercise hon. Members more or less, and which I assure this House has exercised hon. Members on this Bench a great deal more than less. It is a subject, Sir, to which I believe you have directed your most anxious attention—namely, the atmosphere of this House—the poisonous and mephitic atmosphere we have to breathe night after night with the utmost disadvantage to our physical and mental capacities. Therefore, I rise to move the adjournment of the House—first of all, because the atmosphere of the House to-night is in a worse state than I have known it for some time; secondly, because I do think that if the House, on a convenient opportunity like the present, marked its sense of the utter barbarity and incivilization of the sanitary arrangements by adjourning rather before its usual hour, it is possible that the authorities of the House may rouse themselves from that inertia which now appears to possess them, and may call to their aid the resources of science in order that the Members of the House of Commons may breathe an approximately pure air. Under these circumstances, believing that the House may think it is desirable that the attention of the public generally should be called to the imperfect state of the ventilation of this House, I do hope hon. Members will not think I am making an exaggerated demand when I ask them to adjourn early tonight, and refuse to sit here in this vitiated atmosphere any longer. I do not know what the sensations of other hon. Members may be; but I know this, that there is an hon. Gentleman on this side of the House—he is an Ulster Member, though I do not know if he will get much sympathy on that account—an hon. Gentleman on this side of the House is at the present moment, I hear, dangerously ill with a fever of the typhoid kind, and it is seriously suspected that he contracted that fever in this House. Whether that is so or not, I can say, from my own experience, that once or twice during the last few days the air in the House has been terrible, and that which has come up through the floor has been such as to make one perfectly nauseated, and incapable of attending to Business. I venture to appeal, therefore, to the right 297 hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to support the views I have stated in this matter that some strenuous and determined step may be taken by the House in order that we may conduct our Business in a sanitary, if not always in an harmonious, atmosphere. I beg to move that this House do now adjourn.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT) (Derby)

I am very happy to find myself for once, at all events, in entire sympathy with the noble Lord. There is a well-known saying that "misery makes strange bedfellows." I think the misery we have all undergone to-night has been such as may well induce us to retire to our beds at the earliest moment. I entirely share with the noble Lord the sentiments he has expressed as to the disgrace that the House of Commons should be called upon, in these days when we are talking so much about the sanitary arrangements of everybody else, to suffer from the insanitary conditions of which we complain to-night. I think it is important that we should mark our sense of what we have had to endure, and that we should do so by agreeing to the proposal of the noble Lord, and adjourning at this comparatively early hour.