Commons Sitting of 28 February 1888

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBERS SWORN—Edward Brodie Hoare, esquire, for Hampstead Borough; The honble. William Henry Wentworth Fitzwilliam, for York, West Riding, Southern Part (Doncaster Division).
SUPPLY—considered in Committee — Resolutions [February 27] reported.
PRIVATE BILLS (by Order)—Second Reading— Grand Junction Water, put off; Metropolitan Outer Circle Railway.
PUBLIC BILLS — Ordered — First Reading — Speeches in Parliament* [149]; Parliamentary Elections (Seamen's Votes) * [150]; Intestates Estates * [151].

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  GRAND JUNCTION WATER BILL
  (by Order).
  GRAND JUNCTION WATER BILL

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Dodds.)
    MR. DIXON-HARTLANDmoved, as an Amendment, that the Bill be read a second
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    time upon that day six months. He opposed the Bill because, in addition to the injury it inflicted upon the localities which it affected, it was a most objectionable measure in the public interest. It was perfectly unnecessary to speak of the value of the River Thames. The River Thames at the present moment was not only of the greatest benefit to the inhabitants on its banks, but it was used by the people of London as a playground and a health resort. The Bill took fresh powers to acquire land in the parish of Dorney, near to Surley Hall, above Windsor, for the purposes of their undertaking, but it had a much wider scope than it purported to have. The real object of the Bill was to enable the Company to move the whole of its works from Hampton, where they were now placed, higher up the River; invading an entirely new district, while the old district would not be used at all. The promoters of the Bill knew very well that no more water would be allowed to be taken out of the River Thames. They knew that a provision of that kind would never be sanctioned by the House of Commons for one moment, and therefore, in order to blind the House, they inserted in the Bill words to provide that no more water should be taken out of the Thames than was now taken. But what they did was to take power to intercept the water before it reached the Thames. He failed to see the difference of taking the water out of the Thames and intercepting it before it reached that River. So far as the water in the River was concerned, the Conservators were able to test the quantity taken out. If it were intercepted before it reached the River there would be no check whatever upon them, and they could practically take any quantity they pleased without limit. If the sources were tapped from which the Thames was fed, and all the springs taken away, the River would be diminished by a quantity which it was impossible to estimate. The River itself would not be diminished by a known quantity, but by intercepting the sources it would be diminished by an unknown quantity which it was impossible to estimate. It was believed that the effect of the proposed works of the Company would be to reduce the water in the Thames in the summer months, which at the present moment was very low, by one-

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    sixth of its present flow. The inhabitants living along the banks of the River altogether objected to the Bill. Another objection to the measure was that it contained no safeguard or protection at all as to the quantity of water that would be taken. There was no provision whatever by which to check the amount that might be taken, and nothing could prevent the Company from taking more than they might be authorized to take. He trusted that the House would forgive him for moving the rejection of the Bill in this manner, but it was a measure which would seriously injure his own constituents. He had the honour of representing a constituency which lived along the banks of the Thames for 16 miles— all the way from Staines to Teddington Lock. They were of opinion that their existence depended on the manner in which the House treated this measure; many of them obtained their livelihood from the River; if not directly, at all events indirectly, from those who came down to fish and enjoy the boating. If this Bill were passed their occupation would be gone, and, therefore, their interests would be seriously affected. They felt that if a large quantity of water was taken from the River the effect of the diminution of the volume of water would very much diminish the speed of the flow, the consequence being that the River would silt up in a manner very detrimental to the traffic. In the course of last summer the River silted up in a serious manner just below the point where the Grand Junction Company propose to take the water, and if any further quantity of water was taken away the traffic upon the River at that part might be virtually destroyed. The next point was that in the summer time the water would not be bank high, and great quantities of mud would be exposed to the daily action of the sun, causing a large amount of effluvia to arise, which would be most injurious to the health of the inhabitants on the banks. If the Bill passed it would materially affect the River at Richmond and Twickenham. It was almost possible now during the summer to walk across the River at certain points, but if this Bill passed it would be left almost dry. He thought the House would be exceedingly jealous before they consented to do anything further that might be calculated to
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    injure the River. Windsor and Eton were anxious about their water supply. They had lately purchased their works, and feared the supply might be tapped; but at any rate, if this Bill passed, and it did diminish the water in the River, they knew they would be unable to work the machinery by which they supplied themselves with water. There was another matter of great importance. If these works were constructed it was feared that the foundations of Windsor Chapel would be affected, and the safety of the Castle itself imperilled. A Report had been made to the Dean and Chapter some time ago that the lack of water was already undermining the foundations of the Chapel. If the water was contracted still further the probable result would be a subsidence of the soil. It was feared that if this Bill passed the whole of the water beneath the Castle mound might be drawn off. Another point was this—in the dry summer of last year there were visible marks in Winsdor Forest that, the water being taken away from the trees, they showed great signs of decay in consequence. If any quantity of water were permanently taken away the trees in Windsor Forest would be seriously injured. Then, again, the market gardeners were afraid that their land would no longer be fit for the purposes for which it was now utilized, seeing that they were entirely dependent for their supply of water on the water proposed to be drained off by this Company. In addition, the roads in the locality would be rendered useless to those who lived there. He would only point out what occurred at Hampton. At the present moment the roads had been so much taken up by the Water Companies that the Local Authorities had had to buy land in order to put in sewers. The tramway which was about to be formed in the neighbourhood had been stopped, and the inhabitants could not obtain the communication which they ought to have, because the Water Company were interfering with them. As far as London was concerned there was another very serious point. If the water of the Upper Thames were impounded great injury would be done to the scouring power of the River, and the ebb and flow of sewage would constantly be going on between London and Woolwich. The sewage, instead of being carried off by the return water, would be allowed to

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    go backwards and forwards with, the tide. He wished to know why the Conservators of the River Thames had not taken distinct action in the matter? Parliament had placed in their hands the preservation of the River Thames. At the present moment there were a large number of Water Companies, which supplied the Metropolis with water, and he wished to know if the Conservators were likely to receive a larger sum from the Grand Junction Company if they consented to this proposal, and did not treat it in the way it deserved. He thought it was extremely hard that the Conservators should bring criminal prosecutions against persons who polluted the water, and yet were willing to part with the water bodily for a profit, although the inhabitants of London got no benefit from the expenditure. There should be no question that the water supply of the Metropolis ought to belong to the Metropolis, and that would come to pass before very long. The way in which the Water Companies at the present moment treated the public certainly failed to meet with universal approbation. They cut off the water from the poor, and the way in which they raised the rates and made the people pay for the concessions which were given to them did not commend them to public approbation. He wished to know how long was that House prepared to give to these Water Companies privileges for which, the public must hereafter pay? There could be no doubt that Lord Cross's Bill would have been a good measure for the people of London. If that Bill had been carried the Metropolis would have been much better off in regard to its water supply than, it was at present. He feared that they would never get the same terms again. Since then the Water Companies had spent no less than £1,600,000 on works, all of which would have to be paid for. Until there was one grand plan for the entire supply of the Metropolis, all money expended in this way would be money thrown away. How long was Parliament going to allow these Companies to spend money over which they would have no control. The Company did not propose to raise further capital, which made the scheme all the more objectionable, as if they used their unexhausted powers the capital be used would not be liable to the
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    restrictions Companies applying for new powers had to submit to. Personally, he should resist the proposals contained in the Bill in every way. He objected to the second reading, because he did not think that the money of the ratepayers should be spent in order to oppose the Bill in Committee. He understood that the Government intended to support the Bill. At the present moment the Company could increase their works without injuring the taxpayers or the people of London. When the House gave further powers to the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, they accompanied their powers with a sinking fund to pay off the capital authorized to be raised within a certain term. Therefore, in every shape the measure was most objectionable. The last Report of the Local Government Board spoke of the increasing purity of the River. He believed that at the present moment the water supply of London was more pure than that supplied either to Birmingham or Glasgow. No doubt the water had been rendered year by year more pure through the exercise of the provisions which Parliament had imposed upon the Water Companies. He hoped the House would throw out this Bill on the second reading, and not put the parties who were opposing it to the enormous expense which an investigation upstairs would entail. He begged to move the rejection of the Bill.
    MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he rose for the purpose of seconding the rejection of the Bill. It seemed to him that the measure would not only do an injury to the community, but that it was framed in such a way that it was a positive insult to the House. It assumed that the Members of that House were perfect fools; it assumed that they did not know that a river was fed by its tributaries. He supposed the Company thought that the House of Commons imagined that the whole of the Thames water came down in the shape of rain from the sky. He would read one of the clauses of the Bill in order to show what he meant—namely, the 10th clause, which said—
    "The Company may from time to time by means of the works by this Act authorized, take, collect, and divert into their now existing reservoirs and works, and the works by this Act authorized, and therein impound and thence distribute the waters of the River Thames and

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    its tributaries, and of any of the other streams and waters shown on the deposited Plans or on or near the site of the works, by this Act authorized, or on any land, for the time being, belonging to the Company: Provided that nothing herein contained shall authorize the Company to take from the River Thames a larger quantity of water than they are authorized to take under the powers of the Acts hereinbefore recited."
    That meant that the Company should not take in water they had not power to take at the present moment when they claimed to take any water they liked from the tributaries of the Thames. The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Dixon-Hartland) who opposed the Bill, had spoken in the interests of the inhabitants above Teddington Lock. He (Mr. Labouchere) spoke on behalf of those below Teddington Lock. At the present moment so much water was taken from the River that its volume was diminished by about one-third. The consequence was that the mud was carried up by the tide and deposited, the tide not being strong enough to sweep it away. Any hon. Member could see that for himself by looking at the opposite side of the River from the House of Commons. Under these circumstances, he did not think that they should give power to any Company whatever to take water from the tributaries of the Thames. He understood that Mr. Joseph Lucas had made a survey of the water-bearing strata of the Thames Valley. That matter was a large one, and ought to be treated by the House; but it ought not to be taken piecemeal. No Company should be allowed to go to that House and ask for powers which were calculated to injure a river which was of so much importance to Londoners. He had great pleasure in seconding the Amendment.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Dixon-Hartland.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, that no doubt a formidable coalition had manifested itself against the Bill, and he was interested in that coalition, because on previous occasions he had taken part in it, and he had found himself in alliance with the hon. Member for Northampton
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    (Mr. Labouchere) and the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Dixon-Hartland). On this occasion, however, he would ask the House not to be guided by those hon. Members. The hon. Member for Uxbridge, who moved the rejection of the Bill, drew a gloomy picture of what would happen if the Bill were passed. He had made statements of an alarming character. In the first place, he said that the Thames would run dry; that the mud would be uncovered and exposed in consequence of the Thames running dry, which would produce a pestilential effluvia that would be dangerous to health, and might lead to loss of life; that Windsor Castle would subside and possibly tumble into the River; that all the trees in Windsor Forest would decay and die; that every road in the neighbouring locality would become impassable, and cease to be of any use whatever to public traffic. No doubt these were statements of an alarming character; but they were statements which he thought the House would agree could not be taken on the mere assertion of the hon. Member for Uxbridge.
    MR. DIXON-HARTLANDsaid, he was quite sure that the noble Lord did not wish to misrepresent him. He had not made those statements, but he had said that they were brought forward by those who were opposed to the Bill as statements of its probable result.
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, that might be so; but, at any rate, the hon. Member had endeavoured to influence the House by repeating the statements. It was obvious that they were statements which required careful examination. They were allegations which could not be allowed to rest upon any ex parte statement of facts. If the hon. Member was correct in the forecast he had made as to the result of the Bill, no Committee of the House of Commons would hesitate for one moment in rejecting the measure. But the question was, were they correct? The statements which had been made as to the effect of the Bill upon Windsor Castle and the Thames, and all the other effects he had stated to the House, were not questions which the House could, on a second reading stage, examine for themselves. He thought it would be an unprecedented thing if any bonâ fide project for carrying out a great public improvement, such as an addition

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    to the water supply of London, were thrown out on the second reading. He thought he was right in saying that there was no precedent whatever. What was the question that ought to be decided by the Bill? It was essentially a scientific one, on which the evidence of scientific men must be heard. What was the question? It was this—Whether the River Thames and all the amenities of the River Thames would vanish if this Water Bill were passed? He would ask the House with great confidence whether that was a question they could decide in a debate on the second reading? It was a question upon which evidence must be called and thoroughly sifted by a Committee upstairs. What would be the position of the House if it took upon itself on an ex parte statement a project such as this, which might be productive of the greatest possible advantage to a very large number of people? In the speeches of the hon. Member for Northampton and the hon. Member for Uxbridge not one word was said about a most important part of the community—the 500,000 of the population of London who had no recognized representation in that House and no local self-government of their own, and who, if the House did not protect them with the greatest possible care, might suffer great injury if the Bill were rejected. The present Company averred that they were not at the present moment in a position to supply 500,000 of the population of the Metropolis with water unless they got these powers. That was their statement, and the hon. Member for Northampton would hardly deny that any Gas or Water Company, or any other Company, had privileges which should be protected by the House. He maintained that the House could not in common justice to a large population, without authorized information, throw out a Bill of this kind upon any ex parte statement. The Bill undoubtedly ought to be allowed to go upstairs. He had only one more point to bring before the House, but it was a point of great importance. The Inspector of the Local Government Board, who was appointed by the Board to report yearly on the condition of the Metropolitan water supply, had been made aware of this project and had reported upon it. The document was long, and therefore he would not read it, but if
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    any hon. Member would turn to the document he would find that the Inspector had reported in favourable terms on the scheme, and there was not one word in it about all the terrible results which the hon. Member for Uxbridge had stated. He found nothing in it about Windsor Castle, or the trees of Windsor Forest, or the pestilential effluvia, but he did find this passage—
    "There can be no question that if the Directors succeed in carrying out this project the Company will greatly improve its position."
    [Cries of "Hear, hear!"] Yes; but this position was that of a Company authorized and bound to supply London with water. The hon. Members for Northampton and Uxbridge had no consideration for the consumers; they thought only of the people who made a playground of the Thames; whereas he (Lord Randolph Churchill) thought of those who were dependent for their supply of water upon schemes of this kind. The Report went on to say—
    "The consumers, numbering; nearly 500,000 persons, will benefit by having at command a larger, and, so far as the upper source is concerned, a better supply than heretofore. But this project, by the possibilities it introduces, may fairly be regarded as the initiatory step towards the improvement of the water supply of all the Thames-deriving Companies, involving the interests of more than 2,500,000 people."
    He asked the House if this was a project they ought to reject peremptorily on the second reading without any examination—without the slightest consideration for the interests of the Metropolis, or for the 2,500,000 of the population who, for all they knew, were dependent for their water on this supply? He appealed with great confidence to Her Majesty's Government and the Chairman of Committees to say whether he was not perfectly justified in his contention that this was a Bill which the House was bound to send upstairs? If, after a due examination, after studying the evidence, the House was dissatisfied with the decision of the Committee the whole question could be brought before the House again. He implored the House in the interests of the inhabitants of London not to reject the Bill.
    MR. RICHARDSON-GARDNERsaid, he intended to oppose the second reading of the Bill. He did

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    so, not on the general grounds which had been brought forward by previous speakers, but as the Representative of a very large constituency, and a very ancient constituency, on the borders of the Thames. He was anxious to point out how their interests would be very materially affected if this measure were passed. The Corporation of Windsor— the town he had the honour to represent—had lately purchased, or were about to purchase, for the only question remaining to be settled was the amount of the purchase money which was now under arbitration by the Board of Works, a quantity of land which was to be devoted for the purpose of securing the health of the inhabitants of the town. Not only were they entering into this arrangement, but they were engaged with the present generation to pay the sum of money it was necessary to raise, although the scheme was for the benefit of generations that were to come. What would be the result to the Corporation of Windsor and its water works if this Bill passed? The measure authorized the Company to take 300 acres of land contiguous to Windsor and Eton, where the promoters meant to make shafts and adits. By doing so they would draw from the strata the water out of probably 50,000 or 100,000 acres in the immediate neighbourhood. The Bill authorized the Company to draw water which might be found in or under any lands acquired by the Company. But they could not limit themselves to the water found in or under the lands they required, because this particular piece of land was like the neck of a bottle, and would suck in and withdraw all the water out of the chalk formation. What would be the consequence to the inhabitants of Windsor and Eton? It would be found after the Corporation had purchased the land to which he referred, and had spent a large sum of money upon it, that all their wells would be tapped and dried. What security, therefore, could they have for supplying Windsor and Eaton with water, which was undoubtedly as important to those places as the supply to the inhabitants of London? The Company knew very well that the land they proposed to acquire contained a large quantity of water. With regard to the national property contained in Windsor, and particularly Windsor
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    Castle, he would not follow all the arguments of his hon. Friend who moved the rejection of the Bill, but he would say this—that some 20 years ago there was a conflagration in Windsor Castle, and the authorities, being very much alarmed at what had occurred, immediately constructed works for wells in a high position in Windsor Forest, so that the water from certain towers then erected might find its way to Windsor Castle. If a fire were to occur there again, and these wells had been dried by the works of the Grand Junction Company, a very serious calamity might occur. He was told that the Company had made some suggestions to the Board of Works which might be satisfactory to them, but he thought that whatever terms they might offer, or whatever suggestions they might make, it would be much better for the Board of Works to rely upon and preserve the sources of supply they had now, rather than trust to others which they knew not of. There were other reasons why this Bill should not be read a second time; but, seeing that it was a Private Bill, he would not enter into them, but he would leave the measure to the judgment of the House, simply intimating that he should record his vote against it.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Ritchie)said, as the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) had appealed to the Government to give its support to the Bill, he wished to say a few words in answer to that appeal in regard to the course which he would recommend the House to take upon the measure. In the first place, he would point out to the House that this was no wanton application on the part of the Company, but that it was absolutely necessary for them to come to Parliament for additional powers in regard to the supply of water. The Report of the Water Examiner in London to the Local Government Board pointed out clearly last year that the demands upon the resources of this Company had approached almost perilously to the limits of supply. He would only read one paragraph of the Report in order to show what the opinion of the Water Examiner was—
    "The expansion of the demand for water in the district supplied by the Grand Junction

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    Company, and the circumstances under which the supply was carried out during the past two summers, when it approximated closely on two or three occasions to 22,000,000 gallons daily, showed that the time had arrived when a further enlargement of the works must be arranged for."
    The House would see that it was consequently imperative on the Company to come to Parliament for further powers in connection with a supply of water. The question next arose whether the Company could get the enormous supply they absolutely required in the neighbourhood of their existing works. From the evidence before the House it was evident that they could not obtain the supply in the neighbourhood of their existing works, and that if they were by any means enabled to do so, it would not be a satisfactory one, in consequence of the building operations now going on. The next question was whether the proposed source of supply was, from a sanitary point of view, a good one. On that point he thought there could be no question whatever. The source from which it was proposed to obtain the supply was an infinitely superior one to that which the Company at present drew upon. Therefore, whether the House looked at the needs of the Company or the source from which they proposed to obtain a supply, the application would be found to be a justifiable one. No doubt the objections which had been raised by his hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Dixon-Hartland) were of a serious nature. He had no desire to express any opinion upon those objections on the part of the Government, but he agreed with his noble Friend the Member for South Paddington that that was a question in regard to which the House was not in a position to come to a satisfactory decision. It must of necessity be a matter to be inquired into in the usual manner by a Committee of the House of Commons. The position the Government took in the matter was this —they recommended the House to pass the second reading, in order that the Bill might go before a Select Committee, where all the objections which had been raised would be fully considered, and the question would be decided upon its merits.
    MR. BRADLAUGHsaid he intended to ask the House to reject the Bill for precisely the reasons
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    that the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) asked the House to pass it, and not for any of those matters which had been put to the House, no doubt accurately enough, by the hon. Members who had moved and seconded the rejection of the measure, but for a matter upon which the House was perfectly competent to pass an opinion. He spoke on behalf of the population of London. He would put this to the noble Lord and those who thought of voting with him. The proposal was to give to a private Company power to take from the Thames, which was already falling very short year by year, for the benefit of that Company's pocket, water which they were to sell at a profit, and which they should go further away to find, instead of reducing that which was now an insufficient supply. The noble Lord said that the House was not competent to judge of the question. There were matters within the knowledge of the House which they could not help recognizing. One of them was that the Thames for years, except in seasons of flood, had been deficient in volume, and was growing more deficient year by year. His own experience might not be of much value, but he frequently visited the district from which this water was proposed to be taken. He was fishing there only on Saturday last, and, therefore, he spoke with some knowledge when he said that the Thames was not more than two or three inches higher in mid-winter than it generally was in the drought of summer. It used to be that the Thames was only low in summer, but that was not the case now. It was proposed that the Grand Junction Company should take the water away and sell it, and they were told that that was a matter upon which a Committee upstairs could form a better opinion than the House itself. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board intimated that the Government were prepared to support the second reading of the Bill. He was very sorry to hear it. In the interests of the people of London he was sorry to hear such an announcement. He maintained that the Government would do better to prevent that which was an important source of health, because a well-fed river was always a source of health, from being further

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    interfered with by a private Company which would soon have to be bought up in some of the arrangements which were about to be made. He asked the House to reject the scheme. They were told that the Company must have water —that was to say that the Company must have goods to sell. Let the Company then get their goods from a longer distance by the moans which science had placed in their hands, just as Glasgow and Manchester had to do. Why-should a private Company be allowed to convert the Thames into a muddy ditch simply for their own benefit? The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board said the source from which the Company proposed to take their supply was a superior source to that from which they obtained it now. That was quite true; but why should the River itself have its volume of water extracted, and mere sewage, filth, and mud retained in it? He asked the House to reject the Bill as an impertinent attempt on the part of a private Company to make money out of the health of the people.
    MR. SEAGER HUNTwished to point out that the arguments used by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington and the President of the Local Government Board were arguments which should induce the House to look at the question, not from the point of view taken by the Grand Junction Company, but from the point of view of the supply of water to London generally. It might be necessary for this Company for sanitary purposes to remove their works from Hampton to Windsor on account of the pollution of the supply by cesspools. It might, therefore, be necessary to withdraw the water supply from Hampton and for the works to be removed to some other place. On the other hand, his hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Dixon-Hartland) had pointed out a number of evils which would be created if the Bill were passed. The proper course, then, was to refer the whole question of the water supply of London to a Committee. It was not a question pertaining to this one Company alone, but it was a question pertaining to the entire water supply of the Metropolis, and that being so, he ventured to suggest that those who opposed the Bill should come to an
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    understanding that the matter should be referred to a Committee in order that the whole question of the supply of water to London should be thoroughly gone into.
    MAJOR RASCHin supporting the Amendment, said, he hoped the House would allow him to say a few words, as he regarded himself to some extent as an expert, being himself the Chairman of a large Water Company. The intention of the promoters of the Bill appeared to be twofold. First, to obtain a superior supply of water; and, secondly, to take no more water out at Windsor than they now took out at Hampton. They were told that the water supply at Hampton was impure. He thought that they ought not to condone the laxity of the Thames Conservancy Board, who, against the interests of the riparian owners, allowed to be poured into the Thames millions of gallons of sewage. He thought it was wrong that the water of the Thames should be injured owing to the laxity of the Conservancy Board. The argument was that the Company would not take more water at Windsor than at Hampton; but that argument could hardly be held by any man of business, because the difference consisted in taking water 20 miles higher up the River. It was just the same as taking a glass of water out of a nine-gallon cask instead of a water bottle, seeing that the volume of water at Hampton was only one-third of that at Windsor. He hoped the House would vote against the second reading as a protest against the laxity of the Thames Conservancy Board, and in order to prevent the inhabitants of Windsor and Eaton from being subjected to the despoiling of the most beautiful prospect near London.
    THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Mr. COURTNEY)said, he would not detain the House long; but he would recommend hon. Members not to depart from the usual course, but to remit the consideration of the Bill to a Select Committee. Many allegations had been made on both sides in reference to the Bill that were contradictory' to each other, and it was quite impossible that the House could, as a rule, from mere impressions, derived from different statements, come to a right conclusion with regard to them. Every one of the statements made in

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    course of the discussion could be investigated before a Committee upstairs, where the constituents of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Dixon-Hartland) and the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Richardson-Gardner) would be able to protect their own interests. He did not see why the persons represented by the hon. Members for Uxbridge and Windsor should not defend their interests before a Select Committee appointed by the House to inquire into all the vexed questions raised by the Bill. The junior Member for Northampton (Mr. Brad-laugh) had made a powerful impression by appealing to larger considerations relating to the character and state of the Thames. Now, the Thames would be represented before the Committee by the Thames Conservancy Board, who were to appear in opposition to the Bill; and it would be their first duty to show distinctly the effect of the operation of the Bill upon the condition and volume of the water. That was a question which it was absolutely necessary to decide on its merits. If the hon. Member for Northampton had displayed his usual candour in dealing with the House he would have told them, when he spoke of the low level of the Thames at this time of the year—namely, midwinter—that there was an unusually dry summer and an unusually dry winter.
    MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, that except after a flooded winter a few years ago, the Thames in mid-winter had been invariably low for the last 10 years.
    MR COURTNEYsaid, that was a new allegation, but it was one that could be investigated by a Select Committee. There was nothing that the Committee would not have power to examine into with regard to the effect of the operations of the Company, if the Bill were read a second time. So far as a general review of the Thames was concerned, there was only one point which a Committee would not originally inquire into, and that was the probable general effect of the operations of the Company upon the beauty of the Thames. He did not know whether any particular persons would have power to appear before the Committee upon that matter. In reference to the general effect upon the Thames and its banks, he would suggest that if the House consented to read the Bill a second time, as he hoped it would,
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    it might be expedient to agree to an Instruction to the Committee to consider what the effect of the Bill might be upon the beauty of the Thames, and what safeguards could be introduced in order to protect the River under that aspect of the case. Subject to that suggestion he did not know a single issue raised in the Bill which could not be fairly and properly considered by a Private Bill Committee, and which certainly could not be properly decided by the House itself.
    MR. BARTLEYremarked that there was one point which had not been gone into, and that was how the Bill would affect the whole supply of water to London. Many persons thought that the water supply of the Metropolis was not in a satisfactory position, and required to be considered as a whole. Therefore, every Bill passed by Parliament which tended to increase and emphasize the present system by retarding the carrying out of a larger and better supply of water for the whole of London, was one which required careful consideration. That was the view he took of the matter, because in his judgment what was required was that the entire system of the Metropolitan water supply should be carefully investigated. The more formidable and larger the Water Companies became, the more difficult it would be in future to rearrange and consolidate the whole of the water supply of London. Therefore, as they were about to enter upon domestic legislation, he thought the best course for the House to pursue, would be to wait until the entire subject could be inquired into by a Select Committee. He thought the Bill should be referred to a Committee to consider the whole question of the water supply of London.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 104; Noes 188: Majority 84. (Div. List No. 16.)
    Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
    Second Reading put off for six months.

QUESTIONS.

  MERCHANT SEAMEN—CASE OF THE NEGRO RILEY.
  MR. KINGasked the Secretary of State for the Home Depart-

  1637
  ment, Whether his attention has been directed to the case of a negro named Riley, who, having been charged by his captain with an offence at sea, which he strenuously denied, was detained in prison at Hull, under repeated remands, the prosecutor not appearing to maintain the charge, for 109 days, and was discharged last week by the magistrate in default of the prosecution appearance; and, whether the accused, having been discharged under such circumstances, is entitled to any remedy for his long detention?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): Yes, Sir; my attention has been called to this case. The failure of the prosecution to appear was due to the fact that the ship in which the witnesses were travelling to this country was condemned as unfit at Bermuda, and the crew were paid off and discharged. The record of the Naval Court, held at the British Vice Consulate at Pensacola, which found the prisoner guilty of assault and remitted him to this country for trial, was left at Bermuda; and the captain, who was the prosecutor, was ill in bed. Under these circumstances, the prisoner, who had been in custody since the 25th of October, was discharged by the magistrate; but it was not a case in which I could advise that any compensation should be given.

  WESTERN AUSTRALIA — GRANT OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT.
  MR. KINGasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether there is any truth in the rumour that it has been in contemplation to grant responsible Government to Western Australia, having a population of under 45,000 souls, and a territory of 1,000,000 square miles, and whether Parliament will be consulted before any steps are taken to encourage or approve any such movements by the Colonial Office; whether he will state the quantity of Government lands which have been already alienated by the Goverment of the Colony, with the approval of the Colonial Office, distinguishing land sold from land leased, and will state the average price obtained per acre in each case; and, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House, a Return of all land grants, sales, or dealings by the Colonial Government
  1638
  during the past 10 years, stating the names of the grantees or lessees respectively, and, in the case of Sydicates or public Companies who have been Concessionaires, giving the names of the members of such Syndicates or Companies, and the terms and conditions of the Concessions in each case?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS): In reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that it is not proposed, in the event of responsible Government being introduced into Western Australia, to give to the present population the control of the whole of the Crown Lands within the boundaries of the Colony. It would be necessary to pass an Act before responsible Government could be established, so that Parliament will have full opportunity of considering the proposals, should they be proceeded with, before they can be carried out. Her Majesty's Government cannot, however, undertake to consult Parliament before deciding whether a Bill for the purpose should be introduced. The particulars of leases, sales, and grants of Crown Lands in Western Australia are not recorded in this country, and would, therefore, have to be obtained from the Colony. There would be no objection to procure them, in the event of a proposal being made to Parliament for legislation on the subject of the hon. Member's Question.
  In further answer to MR. KING,
  BARON HENRY DE WORMSsaid, he was not able to lay the Returns asked for on the Table, but would make inquiry.
  In answer to Mr. ARTHUR O'CONNOR (Donegal, E.),
  BARON HENRY DE WORMSsaid, the approval of the Colonial Office would be necessary to any scheme proposed.

  CRIMINAL LAW—SENTENCES OF FLOGGING.
  MR. POWELL-WILLIAMSasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, since recent legislation reserves the punishment of flogging for offences attended by violence, he will bring in a Bill to repeal the provisions of 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 28, under which William

  1639
  Roberts was recently sentenced at Liverpool Assizes to 30 lashes?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): I have consulted with the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice, and they concur in the opinion that the section in question should be repealed. Steps will accordingly be taken by the Government to effect its repeal.

  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRELAND) ACT, 1887—JOHN SULLIVAN, BLACKSMITH — CAPTAIN MASSEY, R.M.
  MR. J. E. ELLISasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether John Sullivan, blacksmith, whose sentence of one month's imprisonment, under the Criminal Law Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887, was set aside by the Court of Exchequer on the ground of there being no evidence to justify a conviction, was tried, convicted, and sentenced by Captain Massey, R.M.; whether at Tarbert, County Kerry, in January, certain persons were convicted by the same Captain Massey, R.M., of the offence of being present at a meeting of the Irish National League; whether in passing sentence Captain Massey declared—
  "It had been established to his satisfaction that a meeting had been held; that that fact raised the presumption that it was a National League meeting; and that the onus of proving that it was not a National League mooting rested on the accused;"
  and, whether Captain Massey, R.M., is one of the magistrates of the sufficiency of whose legal knowledge the Lord Lieutenant has satisfied himself, as required by "The Criminal Law Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887?"
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel KING-HARMAN)(who replied)said: John Sullivan was tried, with four others, on a charge of conspiracy to Boycott, before Mr. Macdermott, R.M., and Captain Massey, R.M., and sentenced to one month's imprisonment. This sentence was set aside by the Court of Exchequer on account of the absence of evidence of a Boycotting conspiracy in Sullivan's case. Evidence of such a conspiracy had been given in the first of the cases heard by the magistrates, but it was not formally repeated in
  1640
  Sullivan's case; and, while the magistrates had had full oral evidence of it, it did not appear on the deposition inspected by the Superior Court, which, therefore, had no judicial knowledge of it existence. As regards the cases heard at Tarbert Petty Sessions, Captain Massey, R.M., reports that the statement quoted is altogether erroneous. Appeals, however, have been taken against the convictions; and I am, therefore, precluded from entering further into the matter. Captain Massey was one of the legally qualified Resident Magistrates under the Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Act, 1882, and has been re-appointed as one of the magistrates of the sufficiency of whose legal knowledge the Lord Lieutenant has satisfied himself, as required by the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887.

  CIVIL SERVICE WRITERS — PROMOTION TO THE LOWER DIVISION.
  SIR JOHN PULESTONasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether the List of Writers to be promoted to the Lower Division of the Civil Service lately issued is to be considered as a final one?
  THE SECRETARY (Mr. JACKSON): The consideration of copyists' claims in the greater part of the Public Offices is completed, and there will be no further promotions to the Lower Division so far as these Offices are concerned. Two or three Departments are still under consideration.

  MERCHANDISE MARKS ACT, 1887— ACTION OF COLONIAL GOVERNMENTS,
  MR. HOYLEasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the Colonial Governments have initiated legislation for the prevention of the import and sale of falsely and fraudulently marked goods, and so as to bring Colonial Law into harmony with "The Merchandise Marks Act, 1887?"
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS): The greater number of Colonies have not yet replied to the Circular Despatch addressed to them by the Secretary of State in September last, urging legislation in har-

  1641
  mony with the Merchandise Marks Act, 1887; but all the answers, as far as received, have been in favour of such legislation. The Secretary of State is now addressing a reminder to those Colonies which have not answered.

  EGYPT—LIGHTHOUSES IN THE RED SEA.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Is he aware that for 1,000 miles up the Red Sea there is no lighthouse; is he aware that the light dues of the Red Sea amount to £60,000 a year, and only £30,000 a year is expended on lights; is he aware that a very large number of valuable vessels, with cargo, have been wrecked during the past few years in the Red Sea, and that great peril and anxiety attends the navigation of those waters to British seamen; and, will he communicate these facts to the Egyptian or Turkish Government, and urge immediate attention to the danger alluded to?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON): From Perim Light there is no light in the usual track of vessels for 840 miles. The facts stated in the second paragraph are approximately correct; but reductions in the dues are intended. The Egyptian Government are now erecting a new and valuable light on Shadwan out of their receipts, and one was erected two or three years ago on the outlying spit of Perim. Wrecks have occurred in the southern part of the Red Sea; and it is desirable that certain additional lights should be placed to guard against the existing dangers. Communications on the subject have been, and are, going on with the Governments concerned.

  IRISH LAND COMMISSION—MR. O'CALLAGHAN, SUB-COMMISSIONER.
  MR. DILLON(for Mr. M'CARTAN)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether Mr. O'Callaghan, who is one of the Sub-Commissioners appointed for the County of Down, is a landlord whose rents were largely reduced by the Land Commission.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel KING-HARMAN) (who replied) said: Having regard to the pretty general reduction of rents in Ireland, I do not think it at all improbable that Mr. O'Callaghan may have had reductions made in any rent which may be payable to him. The Land Commissioners, however, inform me that they do not consider that they are called upon to investigate his private affairs-They are perfectly satisfied with his qualifications, and the manner in which he discharges his duties as an Assistant-Commissioner.

  IRELAND—BOYCOTTING — DEATH OF MICHAEL SULLIVAN, CAR DRIVER, KILLARNEY.
  MR. SHEEHANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in reference to a paragraph recently current in the newspapers about the sudden death of Michael Sullivan, car driver, Killarney, Whether there is any truth in the allegation that deceased was Boycotted, and died of starvation; if he has read the evidence of the wife of deceased, in which she states that her husband "took a good dinner, and had a cup of tea before going to bed" on the night he died; whether Dr. Hickson deposed that deceased was in a weak state of health, and was affected with heart disease, which was the cause of his death; and, if the verdict of the jury was, that "Michael Sullivan died on 16th February, 1888, of syncope or failure of the heart's action?"
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel KING-HARMAN)(who replied)said: The man referred to does not appear to have been Boycotted, or to have died of starvation. The evidence before the Coroner showed that death appeared to have been caused from the effect stated in the Question.

  MERCHANDISE MARKS ACT, 1887—LABELS ON GOODS—" FOREIGN MAKE."
  MR. DIXON-HARTLANDasked the President of the Board of Trade, If under the Merchandise Marks Bill it is permitted to import goods with only numbers and letters on the boxes and labels, or would it be an infringement of the Act to add the words yards or dozens after the

  1643
  goods are warehoused for the purposes of sale? The hon. Gentleman also asked, If under the Merchandise Marks Bill it will be sufficient to have the words "Foreign make" plainly marked on such goods as ribbons, gloves, hosiery, and other textile fabrics, without mentioning the particular country of manufacture?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON)(who replied)said: Under the Merchandise Marks Act there would be no objection to the importation of goods with only numbers and letters on the boxes and labels. Hon. Members will not expect me to express any opinion as to the legality or otherwise of anything that may be done to the goods after they have passed beyond the control of the Customs Authorities. The words "foreign make," though not quite clear, would suffice to pass goods unless they bear the mark of a manufacturer or dealer in this country, in which case the Act requires a direct indication of the country of origin, though I prefer the words "made abroad."

  IRISH LAND COMMISSION—APPEAL OF JEREMIAH BREEN, OF BEAUFORT, KILLARNEY.
  MR. EDWARD HARRINGTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is true that Jeremiah Breen, of Beaufort, Killarney, appealed in a land case from the decision of the Sub-Commissioners sitting at Killarney in March, 1884; that three years elapsed before his case was listed for hearing by the Head Commission sitting in Killarney in March, 1887; that the sitting of the Head Commission was then adjourned till August, and that meantime Breen's case was removed from the list; when it is probable his appeal will be heard, as it has now been pending four years; and, what was the old rent, and what is the "fair rent" fixed in March, 1884, by the Sub-Commissioners?
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel KING-HARMAN)(who replied) said, the Land Commissioners had informed him that the facts were precisely as stated in the Question. The delay, however, was due to the fact that the tenant had not thought it necessary to apply for a re-hearing in time under the
  1644
  Rules of December, 1883. The application would, in due course, appear in the list for hearing at the next sitting of the Killarney Sub-Commission, the date of whose sitting had not, however, been fixed. The old rent was £25 10 s. and the judicial rent £21 10 s.
  MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say whether it is the fact that during those four years the tenant has had to pay the old rent; and, also, how he can explain that it is the fault of the tenant for not having had his application listed, when, as a matter of fact, the tenant's case was listed in March, 1887, when the Head Land Commission then adjourned as a mark of respect to the memory of the late Mr. Vernon, and that the name of the case then disappeared from the list?
  COLONEL KING-HARMAN: I cannot answer the first part of the Question as to what rent the tenant has had to pay. The sitting of the Court of Appeal in March, 1887, could not beheld, as Mr. J. E. Vernon died in that month, and the Commission was incapable of discharging any judicial functions until his successor was appointed. I have no information about the last part of the Question, and I should rather be inclined to think that the statement is inacourate.
  MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON: That allegation is the whole point of the Question—that his name was on the list of appeals for hearing before the Head Commission in Killarney, in March, 1887. That was three years after his case had first been heard. That then, when it came on to be heard in March, the adjournment took place in consequence of the death of Mr. Vernon, and that then the tenant's name disappeared from the list which was published in November. I wish to know if there is any explanation of that?
  COLONEL KING-HARMAN: If the hon. Member will renew that portion of his Question I will inquire about it.
  MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON: I shall do so.

  ARMY (ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT)— FAILURE OF THE 9·2-INCH GUNS.
  MAJOR RASCHasked the Secretary of State for War, What proportion of the 9·2 guns have failed; who made them; and, whether any

  1645
  more are being constructed of the same pattern?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. E. STANHOPE): Twenty-seven 9·2-inch guns have now been proved, of which, if cracking the liner be regarded as failure, five have failed on proof. The guns which cracked their liners were all made in the Royal Gun Factories; but the liners were obtained by contract; and as all which cracked were from one maker, while none made elsewhere cracked, the presumption arises that some peculiarity in the steel may account for the result. The pattern has, however, been altered with regard to the fitting in of the liner.

  ARMY (ORDNANCE STORE DEPARTMENT)—INSPECTTON AND RECEPTION OF LEATHER.
  MR. HOWELLasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether his attention has been called to the Report of the Judge Advocate General with regard to certain transactions in connection with the inspection and reception of certain leather at the Ordnance Store Department at Woolwich; whether it is true, as stated in the Report, that—
  "In a great many cases the sealed pattern attached to the specification was a very inferior pattern of the articles described; "
  whether, as regards hides,—
  "The specification described the very best class of hides, whereas both the sealed pattern and the sample were universally of a quality and dressing inferior to that described in the specification; "
  whether a contractor, whose attention was "called to the condition of the hides," stated in evidence,—
  "I accept no responsibility about them, because, when I send in hides properly dressed, and they have been approved by the Inspector, there is an end of the matter, so far as I am concerned;"
  and, whether the Government will consider the advisability of establishing a system, under which, after a certain number of articles had been found not to be equal to be specification, the contract should be considered void, and the whole of the goods returned to the contractor?
  MR. HANBURYwished to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he could say who was the official who
  1646
  was responsible; and what action, the War Office proposed to take in regard to the retention of that official in the Public Service?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. E. STANHOPE): My right hon. and learned Friend the Judge Advocate General (Mr. Marriott), to whom I am much indebted for having undertaken an inquiry as to the inspection of leather at Woolwich at my request last year, has now presented a Report which is of a serious character, and is engaging the earnest attention of the Government. As regards Question No. 22, which the hon. Member proposes to put, I would ask him to postpone it until Thursday. The bearing of the Report upon individuals must be dealt with as a whole. I am not sure that I ought not to ask the House to allow me to deal with it, not in the form of an answer to a Question, but in reply to the Motion of the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hanbury), when I can explain fully the views of the Government on the subject. As regards Question No. 21, the Report seems to me to be, generally speaking, fully supported by the evidence, and contains the three statements quoted by the hon. Member. I may say that I propose in future to withhold tenders, either temporarily or permanently, from firms who persistently neglect to work fully up to standards and specifications. In the case of one contract, which was completed, the defective articles have been, as I mentioned the other day, returned to the contractor, and he has been directed to replace them.
  MR. HOWELLinquired, whether the persons mentioned in the Report as responsible were being continued in the employment of the Government in the positions they occupied?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I would rather answer all Questions concerning individuals on Thursday.
  MR. HANBURYwanted to know whether the right hon. Gentleman would undertake that Messrs. Dunn and Moody, who had performed a great public service in bringing this subject before the public, should suffer no detriment whatever, either at the War Office or in the Department with which they were connected?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I would rather reserve all I have to say about indi-

  1647
  viduals till I can speak of them as a whole. I admit that Messrs. Moody and Dunn undoubtedly rendered a public service.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked whether, having regard to the seriousness and importance of the subject, the Government would afford an early opportunity of discussing it in a graver way than by mere Questions?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I think that is a Question which ought to be addressed to my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Treasury.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman would, in the course of his statement, whenever he made it, say whether there was not at the War Office a list of contractors kept by the Superintendent of Contracts; whether it was decided some time ago to remove from that list the names of Messrs. Ross and Co.; and whether that Order was afterwards rescinded?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I will answer that Question when the proper time comes.

  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND)—SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS.
  DR. R. MACDONALDasked the Lord Advocate, If men holding more than one croft of the aggregate rental of £4 and upwards per annum in Gairloch, and elsewhere in the Highlands, are precluded from voting in School Board elections, because the rent of any one of their holdings does not come up to £4 per annum?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD) (Endinburgh and): This is purely a legal Question. I refer the hon. Member to Section 12, Sub-section 2, of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1872, for a statement of the qualification for electors on School Board elections.

  POLICE (METROPOLIS)—STREET ROBBERIES IN ST. LUKE'S.
  MR. J. ROWLANDSasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he has received from Mr. Preston, Vestry Clerk of St. Luke's, a detailed statement of the many street robberies in that parish,
  1648
  together with a copy of the Correspondence between the Vestry Clerk and the Commissioners of Police; whether it is true, that in a letter of the 27th January last from the Commissioners it was stated—
  "That the police have done all that can be reasonably required of them; there is nothing to justify any supposition that they are unable to deal with crime in the locality referred to;"
  whether, in reply to that letter on the 8th February, Mr. Preston, the Vestry Clerk, supplied to the Commissioners of Police a second list of street robberies in St. Luke's, to which he has received a reply from one of the Assistant Commissioners, stating, that he—
  "Has to acquaint you that he has made careful inquiry into the statement made by you, which, however, confirms the view previously expressed by him as to the adequacy of the police arrangements in the district; "
  and, if this decision of the Commissioner of Police is accurate, that they decline to take any further precautions for the protection of life and property in the parish of St. Luke, will he institute an investigation into the statements of the Vestry, and see that the necessary protection is afforded to the inhabitants?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): Yes, Sir; I have received such a communication. The letters of the Commissioner of the 27th of January and the 8th of February were in the terms quoted. The Chief Commissioner, after careful inquiry, has come to the conclusion that the state of crime in the locality is, on the whole, normal; that, except in two or three cases, the offenders have been apprehended; that, under these circumstances, the police of the locality are sufficient to protect the public. I will make further inquiry into the statements of the Vestry with a view to secure necessary protection to the inhabitants.

  CENTRAL AFRICA—THE SLAVE TRADE —ATTACK ON PRESBYTERIAN MISSION STATIONS.
  DR. CAMERONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether his attention has been called to the attack by organized bands of Arab slave dealers on the Presbyterian Mission Stations near Lake Nyassa, and the precarious position of the Missionaries and the British Con-

  1649
  suls, O'Neill and Hawes; whether Her Majesty's Government has taken, or will take, any steps to assist them; whether he is aware that the African Lake Company, if empowered by Charter to enter into alliance with friendly tribes and assisted by Government, is prepared to equip and maintain an armed police force among the friendly tribes on the northern shores of Lake Nyassa, and to place a gunboat on that lake for the suppression of the rapidly increasing slave trade on its shores; and, whether Government will consider the advisability of treating with the African Lake Company as to the grant of the requisite powers?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON): The latest Report from the region in question is from Consul Hawes, dated December 10. He had found Consul O'Neill and the other whites encamped in safety on the north shore of Lake Nyassa. An advance was then contemplated against the Arabs, by whom they had been attacked, and whom they had repulsed with the assistance of friendly Natives. The Nyassa Consul, Mr. Hawes, and Consul O'Neill, of Mozambique, who happened to be travelling in the neighbourhood, repaired to the assistance of the Station menaced by the Arabs. The House will see that Her Majesty's Government could not undertake responsibilities in connection with settlements, established without their concurrence, situate several hundred miles from the sea coast, in a district inhabited by warlike tribes and infested by slave-trading Arabs. Her Majesty's Government have no knowledge of the power of the African Lakes Company to protect life and property in the remote regions where these events occurred; and they are not in a position to confer administrative power over a district which is not under their control.

  PENSIONS—CIVIL LIST OF KING GEORGE III.
  MR. HANBURYasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether the statement that the ages of the pensioners now living, who 68 years ago were on the Civil List of King George III., varied from 75 to 92 years, was intended to convey that some of such persons began to receive pensions at the age of
  1650
  seven years, and perhaps earlier, or whether such pensions were for two or more lives; when the persons now aged from 75 to 92 began to receive a pension, and at what ages respectively; on what grounds these pensions were granted; and, why, as they were all charged on the Consolidated Fund last year, the life certificates, which should be produced before payment, were not in all cases required?
  THE SECRETARY (Mr. JACKSON): The hon. Member will find answers to the first three paragraphs of his Question, in far greater detail than I could give them here, in the Report of the Select Committee on Pensions in 1838. As regards the last part of the Question, I have to explain that a charge on the Consolidated Fund does not necessarily mean a payment. It is a provision against an anticipated payment, resembling the insertion of a sum in the Estimates. In the case of a pension no payment would be made, or would be passed by the Audit Office, unless supported by a life certificate.
  MR. HANBURYasked, whether the hon. Gentleman admitted that some of these pensions began to run at the age of seven years?
  MR. JACKSON: If the hon. Member desires to get information I will refer him to the pages of the Report, in which he will find the name and the full particulars of each of these cases.
  MR. HANBURY: These pensions were all charged on the Consolidated Fund during the past year. The hon. Member told me the other day that in one case no certificate was received for three years. Was that pension paid or not? ["Order!"]
  MR. JACKSON: A charge on the Consolidated Fund is not the same thing as a payment out of the Consolidated Fund. It is a charge on the Consolidated Fund as a provisional payment which may become due. In the case to which the hon. Gentleman referred, I have made the most searching inquiries, and have satisfied myself that the payment has not been made.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: Can the, hon. Gentleman inform us whether, in the case of one of the pensions paid seven years ago, the pensioner must have been 136 years of age?
  MR. JACKSONsaid, perhaps the hon. Member referred to the case of a pen-

  1651
  sioner who was 107 years of age; but he could not answer his Question without further particulars and Notice.

  CRIMINAL LAW—RELEASE OF COPE, A CONVICT.
  MR. HANBURYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the case of a convict Cope, alias Stockley, arrested at Birmingham on suspicion of having committed various burglaries since his recent release on ticket-of-leave; whether it is the fact that no information of his release was published to the police until several weeks after his release, and not until some days after his re-arrest; and, whether he will undertake that in future due notice shall be published to the police of the intended release on ticket-of-leave of such convicts?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): No, Sir; it is not a fact that no information of this convict's release was published to the police until after his re-arrest. On his release he went to Staffordshire, to the police of which place his discharge from prison had been duly notified by the authorities of Chatham Prison. He reported himself there; but left in a few days without notifying his change of address. I have just received a telegram from the Chief Constable of Birmingham, who says that no blame whatever attaches to the Staffordshire police or to the convict authorities. Due notice always is given of the intended release of a convict.

  SALMON FISHERIES (SCOTLAND)— TWEED FISHERIES ACTS—AMENDMENT.
  MR. THORBURNasked the Lord Advocate, Whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce a Bill this Session to amend the Tweed Fisheries Acts, with the view of remedying the anomalies and grievances in the existing Acts complained of in Petitions signed by all classes of the community?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD): Yes, Sir; it is the intention of the Government to introduce a general Bill relating to salmon fisheries in Scotland, including the Tweed Fisheries.

  EDUCATION DEPARTMENT (ENGLAND AND WALES)—AWARD OF THE MERIT GRANT.
  MR. RANKINasked the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether, in view of the general dissatisfaction expressed by witnesses before the Royal Commission on Education as to the method of awarding the Merit Grant, he will undertake to issue more exact instructions in the forthcoming Code, so that Her Majesty's Inspectors may be able to award the Grant in a more uniform manner?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT (Sir WILLIAM HART DYKE): I am aware that some dissatisfaction was expressed as to the working of the Merit Grant; but the instructions on the subject are already very full and clear, and I am afraid it would be difficult to amplify them without prejudice to the freedom an Inspector should possess to take all the circumstances into account in assessing the Grant.

  BURMAH (UPPER) — THE TEAK FORESTS.
  MR. HUNTERasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether the Government have now obtained the information promised on 4th August, 1887, with respect to the teak forests in Upper Burmah; whether it is intended to continue the monopoly of the Bombay Burmah Trading Company; and, what decision the Government has arrived at respecting future lessees of these forests?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JOHN GORST): The Government has no information as to the replies addressed to Memorialists on the subject of the teak forests of Burmah, nor has he reason to think that any replies have yet been given. The negotiations with the Bombay Burmah Trading Company have not yet been finally concluded. The further arrangements in reference to these forests are still under consideration.

  POST OFFICE—IRREGULAR DELIVERY OF THE IRISH MAILS.
  MR. DE COBAINasked the Postmaster General, Whether he

  1653
  has seen a communication in The Standard of Saturday, complaining of the serious irregularity in the delivery of Irish mails, which, arriving at Euston at 6 a.m., were not delivered till 12·30 p.m., or six and a quarter hours after arrival; whether a sum of two guineas per annum was demanded for the privilege of giving the letters to messengers who might be sent to the District Office for them; and, whether, if there be foundation for these charges, he will take immediate steps to have the difficulties removed which impede the delivery of Irish letters?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES): The letter to which the hon. Member calls my attention referred, I understand, to the Postal District of Bow. I find that a revision of the postal arrangements there is now under consideration, and it is proposed to establish a new delivery of letters, commencing at about 10 a.m. The Irish letters for the District, which do not reach London in time for the first delivery, would fall into this delivery, and would thus be accelerated by about two hours. The difficulty in this case has been that the total number of letters has not hitherto been sufficient to warrant the expense of making an additional delivery, and they are barely sufficient at the present time. The charge mentioned of two guineas a-year was for a private box at the District Office, and is the usual charge.

  TRUCK ACT, 1887—PAYMENT OF WAGES.
  MR. RANKINasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether there is anything in the provisions of the Truck Act passed last Session which renders it illegal for any employer to give his workmen beer or cider, in addition to their wages, if such gift does not form any part of a contract for wages?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER): In reply to the hon. Member, I have to say that there is nothing in the provisions of the Truck Act passed last Session to make it illegal for an employer to give his workmen beer or cider in addition to his wages, if such gift does not form any part of the contract for services.

  INTERNATIONAL SUGAR BOUNTIES CONFERENCE — THE BANQUET AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE.
  MR. BIGGARasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Under what head will appear the charge for the expenses in connection with the banquet given at the Foreign Office in November last to the delegates to the International Sugar Bounties Conference, or by whom those expenses have been defrayed; under what head will appear the expenses connected with the visit of the hon. Member for the Toxteth Division of Liverpool (Baron Henry de Worms) to Paris, Brussels, Berlin, and The Hague, in relation to the suppression of the bounties; and, if he can state to the House the amount of these expenses?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): The hon. Member for Cavan will, no doubt, be pleased to hear that there is no charge whatever upon the public in connection with the dinner referred to in the first part of his Question. With regard to the second part of the Question, the hon. Member for the Toxteth Division of Liverpool visited Paris, Brussels, Berlin, and The Hague for an important public object; but his mission was not of a character calculated, or intended, to involve any public charge whatever. The hon. Member undertook this journey solely out of zeal to the Public Service, and the public are greatly indebted to him for what he has done.

  SELECT COMMITTEE ON ARMY AND NAVY ESTIMATES —RE-APPOINTMENT.
  MR. J. E. ELLISasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the Government propose to accede to the suggestion of the late Select Committee on Army and Navy Estimates, that it should be re-appointed; and, whether the Government propose the appointment of a Select Committee on the Civil Service Estimates?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): The hon. Member asks me a Question with regard to the Select Committee appointed on the Motion of the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington

  1655
  (Lord Randolph Churchill) last year. I will, therefore, take the opportunity of referring to a Question of which the noble Lord has given me private Notice, so that I may answer upon the whole question of the treatment of the Estimates on this occasion. It is the intention of the Government to go considerably further than the re-appointment of the Committee over which the noble Lord presided last year. The Government are most anxious that opportunities should be afforded hon. Members of informing themselves as to the details of the Estimates, as far as it is possible for them to do so, and to have the assistance of hon. Members in regard to the creation of expenditure, which is frequently pressed on the Government in detail by hon. Gentlemen in the House by Questions and Motions; and it is the intention, therefore, of the Government to propose the appointment of three Select Committees on the Estimates—one to which the Army Estimates will be referred; another to which the Navy Estimates will be referred; and one for the consideration of the Votes proposed for the Revenue Departments and the Post Office. The Government are of opinion that it will be necessary to frame the References to the Committees in terms which will restrain them from the consideration of any questions tending to the increase of the charge for those Services. I believe the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) has given Notice for a Committee with reference to the form in which the Estimates shall be presented, and the mode in which they shall be considered. It is intended to ask the House to concur in the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman as to the appointment of a Committee of the House to consider the extremely important question as to the degree in which modifications might, with advantage to the public interest, be made in the forms which govern the discussion of the Estimates in Committee and on Report to the House, with the view of at once effecting an economy of the time of the House, and of securing a more regular and effective examination of the expenditure of the country than has taken place in recent years. The House will see by the appointment of these various Committees that the Government is
  1656
  thoroughly in earnest in endeavouring to secure to Members full opportunity for an effective control over expenditure, while the Executive Government must, of course, retain undiminished responsibility for all questions of policy.

  MOROCCO—ALLEGED OUTRAGE UPON A BRITISH SUBJECT.
  SIR JOHN SIMONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he had seen the telegrams in The Times of yesterday and today reporting an outrage upon a British subject in Morocoo, according to which the house of a Jewish woman—a widow and a British subject, residing in Tangiers—had been entered, herself and children ill-treated, and a boy of 15, the natural son of a brother, residing with her, forcibly taken away and baptized? He would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he would carefully inquire into the statement that the British Consul had notice of the threatened outbreak, but took no steps to prevent it? He would further ask him whether the Government would take steps to inquire into the whole matter, and endeavour to obtain restitution of the boy and reparation for the outrage? He should also like to know whether there was any foundation for the statement that such outrages seemed likely to be of frequent occurrence?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON): The attention of the Marquess of Salisbury has been called to the case of the widow Athias. Her Majesty's Minister in Morocco has been instructed by telegraph to report upon the case, and to telegraph what action he has taken. I have no reason to believe that Sir William Kirby Green is at all backward in protecting British subjects. Everything that is proper will be done.

  THEATRES (LONDON AND THE PROVINCES) — CONSTRUCTION — LEGISLATION.
  MR. TATTON EGERTONinquired, Whether the Government had decided to promote a Bill dealing with the subject of theatres; and, if so, when it would be introduced?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS): The question is still under the consideration of the Government, who will shortly come to a decision.

  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRELAND) ACT, 1887 (IMPRISONMENT OF A MEMBER).
  MR. SPEAKER MR. SPEAKER acquainted the House that he had received the following letter relating to the imprisonment of Mr. Flynn, a Member of this House:—
  Limerick, Ireland, 26th February, 1888.
  Sir,
  I have the honor to inform you that on yesterday, the 25th instant, at Kanturk, county Cork, James C. Flynn, Esq., Member of Parliament for the North Division of the County of Cork, was convicted of an offence against the 2nd Section, Sub-section 1, of the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887, and sentenced by a Court of Summary Jurisdiction, constituted under the said Act, to be imprisoned in Her Majesty's Male Prison at Cork for the period of twenty-one days without hard labour.
  I have the honor to be,
  Sir,
  Your most obedient servant,
  J. B. IRWIN,
  Resident Magistrate, and Chairman of the said Court.
  The Right honble.
  The Speaker of the House of Commons, London.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (RULES OFPROCEDURE.)—II. CLOSURE OF DEBATE.—RESOLUTION.

    [ADJOURNED DEBATE.] [SECOND NIGHT.]
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH)said, he had now to ask the House to proceed with the second Resolution, which was as follows:—
    "That Questions for the Closure of Debate under Standing Order XIVA. shall be decided in the affirmative, if, when a Division be taken, it appears by the numbers declared from the Chair that not less than One Hundred Members voted in the Majority in support of the Motion."
    That Resolution was intended to reduce the majority required to enforce the closure from 200 to 100. He had no doubt that it would be received with regret, and possibly with dissatisfaction
    1658
    by many Members of the House. A proposal of that character was not made with any satisfaction by the Government; but they felt that it was essential in order that the House might proceed to the discharge of its duties. The experience they had last Session satisfied the Government that an alteration of the Rule was necessary. It might be said that this was too great a power to place in the hands of any Party; but he relied upon the fact that there was a discretion vested in the Chair which would prevent the power being exercised arbitrarily or unnecessarily. On two occasions the Chairman of Committees did exercise that power when it was proposed to apply the closure. He did not intend to revive the discussion which lasted over so many days during the last Session of Parliament, and he would only ask the House to consent to this modification of the Rule, as he believed it to be in the interest of the House itself in order to promote the due despatch of Public Business. He earnestly appealed to the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Gedge) not to press the Amendment of which he had given Notice, which would make it necessary for the majority on a Division upon a Motion for the Closure to exceed the minority by at least 50 votes, a proposal that he believed would not be found possible to work in practice. Thus, if the minority numbered 180, it would require that the majority should be 230. He begged to move Rule 2.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That Questions for the Closure of Debate under Standing Order XIVA. shall be decided in the affirmative, if, when a Division he taken, it appears by the numbers declared from the Chair that not less than One Hundred Members voted in the Majority in support of the Motion." —(Mr. W. H. Smith.)
    MR. DILLWYNin rising to move, at the end of the Question, to add the following words: —
    "Provided always, that should the Question for the Closure of Debate be decided in the negative, no similar Motion shall be made on the same Question until after the time of two hours has elapsed,"
    said, he did not feel it necessary to oppose the Rule itself; but what he proposed was that when the House had once negatived the application of the closure, two hours should elapse before it was put again. He thought some

    1659
    such provision was necessary in order to maintain the dignity of the House itself. He did not think that it would be a dignified proceeding to give power to put the Rule in force time after time at short intervals. As the Rule stood the Government of the day would have power of sending out their Whips and bringing in their men, and of putting a Rule in force before anything in the shape of discussion could have occurred after a similar proposal had been negatived. He thought that the House should be protected by permitting some interval to elapse before the Rule was put in operation after it had once been distinctly refused, and he was of opinion that an interval of two hours was not unreasonable. If the Rule were adopted as it stood, he was afraid that it would have a tendency to lower the debates in that House in the esteem of the country, and he was afraid it would prevent the establishment of a good feeling in the House itself. He would not trouble the House by entering into a debate upon the general principle of closure. He would simply say that he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman opposite as to the propriety of amending the Rule; but he did not think that the safeguard suggested in the Amendment was an unreasonable one, or one that ought to be rejected.
    Amendment proposed,
    At the end of the Question to add words "Provided always that should the Question for the Closure of Debate be decided in the negative, no similar Motion shall be made on the same Question until after the time of two hours has elapsed."—(Mr. Dillwyn.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
    MR. HENRY H. FOWLERsaid, he rose upon a point of Order to ask Mr. Speaker, whether the putting of this Amendment would preclude the discussion of the earlier part of the Rule? Would hon. Members be precluded from discussing the earlier part of the Resolution at all?
    MR. SPEAKER: Yes; and I waited purposely before calling on the hon. Gentleman to move his Amendment, in order to give the House an opportunity of discussing the Rule as it stands.
    MR. CHAPLINsaid, he wished to oppose the Rule as it stood, and he should like to know
    1660
    if he would be in Order in making some observations upon that subject now?
    MR. SPEAKER: The most regular course would be to discuss the Amendment before the House, or for the hon. Member for the Town Division of Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) to withdraw it with the leave of the House.
    MR. DILLWYNsaid, he wished to consult the convenience of the House, and in consenting to withdraw the Amendment he hoped he should not lose the opportunity of moving it at a later hour if necessary.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Main Question again proposed.
    MR. CHAPLINsaid, he wished to give the reasons why he objected to the Rule proposed by the right hon. Gentleman. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had expressed accurately the feelings of some Members of the House, when he said that the Rule would be received with a feeling of regret, and possibly even of dissatisfaction. He (Mr. Chaplin) confessed, for his own part, that he always had shrunk, and shrunk at the present moment from going any further in the direction of Closure of Debate than they had gone already. He had always entertained an exceeding dislike to the principle of closure, and he had only consented to accept it as it stood embodied in the existing Rules as an unavoidable necessity. At the same time he saw no reason for strengthening the Rule at the present moment. The experience of last Session had shown conclusively that the present Closure Rule was sufficiently drastic to enable the Government to pass any measure in spite of the most extreme obstruction that could be brought to bear against it. They were told that it was exceedingly difficult under the existing Rule to enforce the closure. For his own part he did not wish to see the closure made more easy than it was at present. He looked upon it as a dangerous weapon to place in the hands of any Government, and he regarded it as equally dangerous whether placed in the hands of a Liberal or a Tory Administration, and that it would lead in the future to probably both of two things—namely, a step in the direction of closure by a bare majority, and to its being made use of as a Party weapon. More than that, the Rule did

    1661
    not seem to meet what it was necessary to deal with at the present moment. What they wanted to deal with was the extreme loquacity and verbosity of hon. Members. He was quite willing to put a stop to the abuse of the freedom of speech in that House by individual Members; but he objected to go further in the direction of the Closure of Debate. For those reasons, he should feel obliged to oppose the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman.
    MR. DILLONsaid, he thought the Liberal Party in that House had reason to congratulate themselves on the present state of affairs. It would be in the recollection of the House that the proposal of the Closure of Debate came in the first instance from a Liberal Government, and it was a measure which had the approval of every thoroughly democratic Assembly in the world. Whatever humble share the Irish Party might have taken in the debates, they had to a certain extent earned the gratitude of the Liberal Party for having brought about such a state of things. He could recollect the time which was not so very long ago, when he sat through 14 weary nights witnessing the most extraordinary and scandalous obstruction which was offered by the then Fourth Party, backed up by the present occupants of the Front Bench opposite, to the Liberal proposal for the closure. Now, however, they found the Conservative Party adjusting the rope round their own necks. It was a spectacle that filled the breasts of the Home Rule Members with the greatest possible satisfaction. As he said, they were putting a rope round their own necks. He trusted the Irish Members would very soon have the opportunity of getting hold of the end of the rope and pulling it, which they would do very tightly. In the meantime they had every reason for congratulating themselves that a great obstacle to the passing of a Home Rule Bill had been cleared out of the way. In the past he had never had any great reverence or affection for that House; but he was beginning to feel more affection for it now than he ever had for it before. He would, however, say this, that he thought the Conservative Party were committing a great mistake in extending this Rule. The proposal was to choke all discussions that were distasteful to the majority. It was
    1662
    a proposition that would always be used against the minority. The Conservative Party were bound to be the minority in the long run, and a proposal which would enable the majority to choke discussion so easily was a proposal which would always tend to a considerable extent to increase the tyranny of the majority. He thought that the Tory Party in giving increased stringency to the Rule, or in proposing the Rule at all, were making a considerable mistake in view of their own interests, and in view of the fact that for centuries the business of this great country had been carried on without recourse to such methods. He thought the Government ought to have tried whether, by other means, the Public Business could not be carried on, trusting to the traditions of respect for the House and reverence for its character. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) had protested against the closure, but wished to see it directed against particular individuals in order to put a stop to verbosity; but it was very doubtful whether the verbosity of the right hon. Gentleman himself would not compare favourably with that of any other Member. The right hon. Gentleman had conveyed to the House what the true root of all this trouble was—namely, that the Government sought for some years to except the Irish Members from the ordinary courtesies which ought to be extended to every Member of the House. They had attempted to except a considerable number of Members from those courtesies and to cut off from them those privileges which ought to be the right of every man in the House. Hon. Members had brought this punishment upon themselves. He doubted very much whether the Irish Party would suffer most from the closure. He thought that, on the contrary, the Conservative Party would suffer more, and he had not the slightest intention of offering any opposition to the proposed Rule.
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he did not think it would contribute to any public purpose if he were to refer with any minuteness to the proceedings in the Parliament before last, as the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) had done. He would only make this remark. The

    1663
    hon. Member spoke severely in condemnation of the obstruction of what he called the Fourth Party. The conduct of that Party might have been very bad; but in their opposition to closure, to whatever length it was carried, they always enjoyed the fullest sympathy of the Irish Party. He therefore doubted whether it lay in the mouth of the hon. Member to hold the Fourth Party up to execration. Passing away from that subject, he was really anxious to clear himself from all responsibility for this great change. He had been alluded to in the autumn by many Members on his own side of the House as being a person of the most dangerous Radical opinions and proclivities; as being disposed to import into that House a most drastic measure of closure; and one hon. Member had gone to the extent of warning his audience against his (Lord Randolph Churchill's) revolutionary principles. Well, his advocacy of the closure was limited to the form in which it was proposed last year. That was the form he had always had in his mind; it was the form he had pressed upon his Colleagues, and when it was adopted by the House, all his desire in regard to the closure was satisfied. They were now asked to reduce the number required from 200 to 100, in order to make it possible to carry the Closure of Debate. He was not at all without sympathy for the feelings of the right hon. Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) on this matter. He thought it would have been well if the Government had exhibited a little more patience than they had manifested, and had endeavoured to rub on a little longer, in order to give a more complete control to the Rule as it was passed last year. There were many reasons why such a course should have been taken. In the first place, the Government had succeeeded in carrying a most drastic and almost revolutionary change in the Procedure of the House of Commons. Last year the difficulty in applying the closure was felt after 12 o'clock, in the small hours of the morning. It was naturally felt that it was not necessary to keep so large a body of Members in attendance in order to support the closure; but he could not see what serious difficulty there ought to be if the Unionist Party, animated in their desire to see the Public Business carried on,
    1664
    tried to keep 200 Members in the House out of a Party which was said to number 350 until 12 o'clock. He, therefore, thought the Government might have been content with the Resolution which was passed last year. Another reason why he thought the Government might have rubbed on with the old Rule was that the character of the Resolution which they intended to propose this year was hardly such as ought to be forced through the House by the drastic application of the closure. The Government were about to bring forward Resolutions which ought not to excite Party feelings; and the Irish policy of the Government did not require to be supported by the closure, seeing that it was not likely to receive the same kind of opposition which it met with last Session. Another reason why the Government should not have proposed an alteration of the Rule was that they had had public declarations from the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), and of still more value and importance from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), that what was known as Obstruction would not be countenanced either by the Leader of the Opposition or by the Leader of the Irish Party, and that if there was any repetition of what occurred last Session it would not be with their sanction or approval. If he (Lord Randolph Churchill) had had the great honour of remaining with the Government, he should certainly have advised the propriety of leaving the Rule alone at present. He understood the Government to tell the House that it was perfectly impossible to make any progress with Public Business without the application of the closure. If that was their honest opinion, it was obvious that, however much any Member on that—the Ministerial—side of the House might question the soundness of their reasons, it was hardly possible to offer any opposition. He thought, however, that the Rule, as now proposed, was wholly unnecessary. That was merely a personal opinion, but he wished to place it on record, because he declined to be responsible for any of the consequences that might result from the extension of the closure in time to come.
    MR. CRAIG SELLARsaid, he wished to remind the House of what occurred last Session.

    1665
    When it was proposed that the majority should consist of 200, he had moved to omit 200 in order to substitute 120. That proposal was negatived, so that he was unable to move his Amendment to substitute 120 as the quorum. His proposition received support from both sides of the House, though it was opposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler). It was negatived, and 200 found its way into the Rule. The Loader of the House said that if he were beginning again he would be inclined to propose a smaller number than 200. That encouraged him to hope that this year the right hon. Gentleman would propose to reduce the quorum not only to 120, but still lower. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) said that the experience of last Session had shown that it was unnecessary to have a more drastic closure; but he (Mr. Craig Sellar) would like to call the attention of the House to what happened in the month of March, only five days after his Amendment was rejected, with regard to the number necessary for the closure. There were essential Votes which had to be carried in Committee of Supply on that evening—Votes on account in the Civil Service Estimates and in the Navy Estimates. The Leader of the House said it was absolutely necessary that they should be carried in the course of the evening. The discussion went on till a quarter past 1 without any of the Votes being passed. At that hour the hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) moved the adjournment of the debate, and that Motion was discussed, with some acrimony, till 3.30, when a Division showed 199 in favour of going on with the Business and 61 against it, so that the absence of a single Member prevented the closure being applied to the debate on a night when it was essential to get the Votes. The closure accordingly was not adopted, and the debate went on. At 5.30 another Division was taken, and as a quorum was found to be present, 210 Members voted for the closure, and it was applied, and one of the Votes was carried. But this majority did not continue in the House; in the next Division it fell to 141. After that four Divisions were taken, and still there was no quorum present. On every occa-
    1666
    sion the quorum was higher than the 120 he had proposed, but did not reach 200. At 1.10 in the afternoon, 250 Members were present and voted for the closure, and the essential Votes were carried, after a sitting of 22 hours. During the rest of the Session the quorum was frequently short of the necessary 200. He was glad the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had now come forward with a proposal to reduce the quorum to a manageable number. The House—by which he meant the majority—must be master of its own time. The majority were sent there to carry on the Business of the country. But if it were not master of its own time it could not carry on the Business of the country. He hoped that in future the closure would be more frequently resorted to for the purpose of carrying on Public Business. He was convinced that no Minister of the Crown would ever be able systematically to abuse the Closure Rule. There were always enough men of independent mind in the House who would resist such a proposal even from the most arbitrary Minister, and they would be supported by the country outside. No Minister who attempted to abuse the Rule would again have a majority in that House, or would come back again as a Minister of the Crown.
    SIR ROBERT FOWLERsaid, he very much regretted that his right hon. Friend below him (Mr. W. H. Smith) should have found it necessary to propose this New Rule. He (Sir Robert Fowler) would have supported last year a proposal to substitute 150 for 200 as the quorum. He did not consider that number an unreasonable one, as the Members of the Government were always over 30 in number, and, therefore, to have 150 present only meant that 120 independent Members should come down to support the Government. The experience of last Session showed that at certain times there was great difficulty in securing the attendance of 200 Members; but it must not be forgotten that the Rule they had passed for curtailing late Sittings would very much diminish that difficulty. He therefore regretted that this proposal should have been made.
    MR. SYDNEY GEDGEsaid, that an Amendment stood on the Paper in his name to the effect

    1667
    that the majority should exceed the minority by at least 50 votes; but, at the request of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, he would not press it. He thought, however, that they were making a great mistake in weaving a rope for their own necks. Last year he had proposed a proportional majority of half as many again, and to get rid of the 200 limit. His right hon. Friend had opposed both, but now he himself proposed to do away with the 200, and he believed that the right hon. Gentleman would in the future regret his opposition to the proposal that there should in all cases be a substantial majority of 50. He very much regretted the course which the right hon. Gentleman had taken; but, as he was a hearty supporter of the right hon. Gentleman, he would not move his Amendment. In common with many other Conservative Members, he was pledged, when he entered the House, against closure by a bare majority. Last Session there was a difficulty in applying the closure, because often it was found that the necessary quorum was not present. On six divisions only was the majority less than half as many again of the minority, but on no single occasion did the majority exeed the minority by less than 50.
    SIR LYON PLAYFAIRsaid, that he had always supported a Rule of Closure in the House. He thought the House ought to have complete control over its time, and that, therefore, any Resolution to make the closure more effective in regard to giving power to the House itself to regulate the time of its discussions, he would cordially support. The mere fact that a majority of the House, represented by the Government of the day, should have charge of the Closure of Debate, by making the Motion for it, would be exercised under a sense of responsibility and generally with discretion. The Government were always the party of action; it was the minority that was the party of inaction. So it was the interest of the former to get on with as little friction as possible. His objection was, that last year the Government had introduced a most unfortunate provision into the Closure Rule. Instead of making the House and the Government of the day responsible for the use of the closure, the Government had
    1668
    hauled in the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees, and made them responsible. As he had thought then, and as he continued strongly to think now, it was most desirable that the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees should be outside the action of any objectionable Rules which were calculated to bring them into friction with the House of Commons. Therefore, although he would support with the greatest pleasure a Rule to make the closure more effective, speaking only for himself, he was unwilling to vote for this change, because it would be much more frequently applied and must necessarily increase the responsibility of the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees in giving judgment as to whether the Rule should be applied or not. He thought now, as in last year, that the Government were making a great mistake, and were endangering the position of the Chair by making the Speaker or Chairman of Committees give any opinion whatever upon the application of this Rule. Although he would at once have voted for the proposal that the majority should consist of only 100, if the Speaker and Chairman had not been introduced into the question, he was not disposed now to vote for it when it was to facilitate an application of the closure which would bring the Speaker and the Chairman into collision with the House unnecessarily.
    THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES)said, he was glad that the right hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the House had announced that he spoke for himself only, and that he did not commit right hon. Gentlemen who sat with him. For his own part, if he (Mr. Raikes) had intervened earlier in the debate, he would have ventured to recommend the proposed alterations upon the very arguments which the right hon. Gentleman had used against it. He confessed that if this Rule were to be applied only by a bare majority of the House—provided that majority exceeded 100—in his opinion it would be a matter of very grave consideration for the House; but, having regard to the fact that the Rule last year had most wisely, and as experience had shown most fortunately, interposed the authority of the Chair as a protection to the minority, he thought that it was possible to trust to a bare majority, if

    1669
    consisting of 100 or over, the right of closing a debate when the Chair had sanctioned that Question being put to the House. As it was said last year, and the experience of last Session proved it, the rights of the minority would never be endangered in the House so long as the Chair was filled as it was last year. The experience of last year furnished, indeed, the precise material which enabled the Government to recommend the proposed extension of the Rule, and without that experience they would not be in a position to make the recommendation. Many hon. Members of the House were in favour of something like a proportional majority. But the House had always shrunk from an express concession to a minority of the right to decide a question, and had preferred to deal with this proposal rather from the view of exacting a sufficient proportion in order to give effect to the wish of the majority. He was not ashamed to say that he was one of those who opposed the Standing Order establishing the closure when it was introduced by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone); but the principle having been accepted by the House, it became their duty, as practical men, to make it effective, and not ineffective, in its operation. There were many cases in which it was impossible to have a large quorum; and, in view of the earlier Sittings of the House, it would most likely be found that during the dinner hour the House would be more sparsely attended than in the past. The House of Commons could not "eat its cake and have it," and if hon. Members were determined to go to bed earlier, there must be some method of shortening the debates. Although the Rule might endanger liberty of debate if passed without the Proviso which required the previous assent of the Chair, he believed that so long as that most important and beneficial Proviso was retained, the House might safely trust itself to the operation of the Rule as his right hon. Friend proposed to amend it.
    MR. OSBORNE MORGANsaid, the debate proved once more that time brought round its revenges. In 1882 the Conservative Party were opposed to the application of the closure in any form whatever; but having tried it with certain dimi-
    1670
    nished safeguards, they were now reduced to a proposal for applying it without any real safeguard whatever. Now, the closure might be a good or a bad thing, according to the purpose for which it was applied. It might not only be useful, but necessary, to apply it, in order to put a stop to loquacity and verbosity; but when used to force through the House an unpopular measure, it might be made an instrument of oppression. Last year the closure was applied some 30 or 40 times; but, as far as he recollected, it was almost exclusively applied to one measure which was hateful to five-sixths of the Members affected by it, and which a large minority of the rest of the House could not even now mention without shame and indignation. Under such circumstances, he did not feel inclined to trust to one-seventh part of the House of Commons the power of stifling a discussion which a large section of the House might desire to continue. He agreed with the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) that the change already made in the Sittings of the House really altered the state of things altogether. It was a great hardship, as used to be the case, to compel 200 Members to sit up until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning; but there would be no difficulty in inducing 200 out of a Party which numbered 350 to remain in attendance until 12 o'clock, if it were considered really necessary to press forward legislation.
    COLONEL NOLANsaid, he had been unable to discover in what direction the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General (Mr. Raikes) tended. When the right hon. Gentleman was himself Chairman of Committees, he was about the first man to pay due deference to the rights of private Members; but when he did not fill an official position, he voted in every obstructive Division, and his example had been constantly quoted. The right hon. Gentleman had only used one real argument, and that was, that now the House had passed the 12 o'clock Rule, they ought to get through their Business quicker. Personally, he (Colonel Nolan) saw no reason why they should not continue the quorum of 200. There were always some 60 or 70 political hacks connected with every Government— he did not use the term disrespect-

    1671
    fully—who might be certainly relied upon to support the Government of the day; and now it would be simply necessary for the Whips to secure the attendance of some 30 or 40 more—which, as a rule, would be supplied from the ranks of the Government themselves, and the Ministry would always be sure of their majority. He defied the Government to do that if they retained 200 as a quorum, and required so large a number of Members to sit up until all hours of the morning. It was not fair to charge the obstruction in the House of Commons upon Members for Ireland, which it had been the custom to do since the time when Mr. J. Lowther and the right hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) first began to obstruct. Under the circumstances, he should vote against the Rule.
    SIR RICHARD PAGETsaid, in order that there might be no doubt about a matter of this importance, he would ask what would be the effect of the Rule now proposed upon the existing Closure Rule? Would the second alternative in the existing Rule which pointed to the opposition of not less than 40 Members, and the support of more than 100, be superseded if the Rule now proposed were passed by the House?
    MR. SPEAKER: The new Rule would be the only Rule of Closure as far as the numbers were concerned, and the alternative which the hon. Baronet referred to would entirely disappear.
    MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, he rose to make a personal explanation. He thought he had heard the hon. and gallant Member for North Galway (Colonel Nolan) accuse him of having been guilty of obstruction. He altogether repudiated such conduct, and he desired to add that the only time when he was accused of these proceedings he had the honour of being defended by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), who came forward in the most gallant manner and absolved him from the charge of having done anything of the kind.
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he could quite understand the reluctance with which his proposal had been received by some hon. Members on that side of the House to make any further alteration in the Closure Rule. It was because he
    1672
    had sat in his place from the meeting to the rising of the House during a whole Session that he felt compelled to come forward and ask the House to give this additional facility for the conduct of Business of the House. He was one of those who in 1882 expressed reluctance to accept any form of closure at all. He was then under the impression that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) might have exercised an authority and influence in the House which would have enabled them to get through the Business without invoking the closure; but once the House had adopted the closure, in the nature of things it became necessary to make it effective. They had, he was sorry to say, parted with the old traditions of the House which sufficed for the efficient conduct of Business; and if anything could bring them back, no one would be more glad than he to endeavour to do so. Therefore it was that the Rule wanted strengthening, for there were periods in the course of the evening when any hon. Member who took an impartial view of the conduct of Business would say that it was for the advantage of the country and of the House that the discussion should be then terminated. He believed the course now proposed to be necessary, and that the safeguards which surrounded it would make it impossible for any Minister to abuse it.
    THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Mr. COURTNEY)said, that the principle which found favour with some of his hon. Friends on the Select Committee on Procedure, by which the closure should be guarded against abuse, was to secure that a certain number of persons should be present when the vote was taken; but his own opinion was that the present quorum of 200 was no guarantee whatever against injustice being done. The feeling which animated hon. Members in voting was not altered whether they had 200 or 100 present. With 200 they might be guarded against surprise; they could not apply the closure as often with 200 as they might with 100. But they did not safeguard that it would be applied more justly had they 600 Members. With regard to the diminution from 200 to 100, he confessed he had no fear that regard to justice would be any the less. But he always regarded closure by bare

    1673
    majority as one of the greatest perils to that House. He utterly distrusted mere majorities of that House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) secured that closure should be on the initiation of the Chair. Undoubtedly that was a safeguard. Now the security was that the Chair must consent. That was a most alarming responsibility to put upon the Chair, and he confessed that he himself had felt it. [Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE: Hear, hear !] He heard the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) say "Hear, hear!" but he would press upon him that he must make his choice whether the burden rested with the Chair, or whether he would secure some other guarantee than that of the presence of a certain number of Members. If they were going to relieve the Chair, as he thought it could be relieved, of responsibility, then they must come to some other guarantee than that of the mere presence of numbers—either a certain proportion or a certain minimum balance, as suggested by the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Sydney Gedge). The fact that the House had adopted new and shorter hours was, to his mind, a very strong reason in favour of the present proposed change, and he disagreed with what the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) said about new hours. If they were to have shorter hours they must have the means of more expeditious work.
    SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, he could not allow the Question to be put without stating his firm belief that if the Conservative Party were sitting on the other side of the House they would oppose this proposal. He had always been among those who were opposed to closure. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) had shown by his action in 1882 that the House had deteriorated from what it was in olden days. It was not required then, but now it was said that the Business of the House could not go on without it. He regretted that his right hon. Friend had thought it necessary to introduce this question again. He agreed with the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Courtney) that if they altered the Closure Rule at all, they should have required a proportional majority, so that it might be seen whether
    1674
    the opinion of the House was in favour of the closure or not. The proposal was now that the question should be decided by a bare majority. He, for one, did not agree to that principle. He could only regret that this was the view of the Government; and he felt from a Conservative point of view that when some of those very important questions now rife and talked of by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway came to be decided in that House, they would find they had by the Rule of Closure made a rope for their own necks. They might find on that question of the deepest importance, the Church of England, that this Rule would be turned against themselves. He, therefore, entered his strongest protest against the proposal of his right hon. Friend.
    MR. DILLWYNsaid, he should not trouble the House with any remarks on the subject of the Amendment which he had placed on the Paper relating to this Rule.
    Question put.
    The House divided: — Ayes 256; Noes 134: Majority 122.

    AYES.

    Acland, A. H. D.

    Birkbeck, Sir E.

    Ainslie, W. G.

    Bolton, J. C.

    Ambrose, W.

    Bond, G. H.

    Amherst, W. A. T.

    Borthwick, Sir A.

    Anderson, C. H.

    Bradlaugh, C.

    Anstruther, H. T.

    Bristowe, T. L.

    Asher, A.

    Broadhurst, H.

    Asquith, H. H.

    Brodrick, hon. W. St. J. F.

    Atkinson, H. J.

    Baden-Powell, Sir G. S.

    Bruce, Lord H.

    Bryce, J.

    Baird, J. G. A.

    Buchanan, T. R.

    Balfour, rt. hon. A. J.

    Burghley, Lord

    Ballantine, W. H. W.

    Burt, T.

    Barbour, W. B.

    Buxton, S. C.

    Barclay, J. W.

    Caldwell, J.

    Baring, T. C.

    Campbell, Sir A.

    Baring, Viscount

    Campbell, Sir G.

    Barnes, A.

    Campbell, J. A.

    Barran, J.

    Carmarthen, Marq. of

    Bartley, G. C. T.

    Cavendish, Lord E.

    Bates, Sir E.

    Charrington, S.

    Beach, right hon. Sir M. E. Hicks-

    Childers, right hon. H. C. E.

    Beach, W. W. B.

    Clarke, Sir E. G.

    Beadel, W. J.

    Cobb, H. P.

    Beaumont, W. B.

    Coddington, W.

    Beckett, W.

    Coghill, D. H.

    Bentinck, Lord H. C.

    Colomb, Capt. J. C. R.

    Beresford, Lord C. W. De la Poer

    Commerell, Adml. Sir J. E.

    Bethell, Commander G. R.

    Corbett, A. C.

    Cotton, Capt. E. T. D.

    Bickford-Smith, W.

    Cozens-Hardy, H. H.

    Biddulph, M.

    Crawford, D.

    Bigwood, J.

    Crossman, Gen. Sir W.

    1675

    Cubitt, right hon. G.

    Heathcote, Capt. J. H. Edwards-

    Davenport, W. B.

    Dawnay, Colonel hon. L. P.

    Heaton, J. H.

    Heneage, right hon. E.

    De Cobain, E. S. W.

    Herbert, hon. S.

    De Lisle, E. J. L. M. P.

    Hermon-Hodge, R. T.

    Hill, right hon. Lord A. W.

    De Worms, Baron H.

    Dillwyn, L. L.

    Hoare, E. B.

    Dixon-Hartland, F. D.

    Hoare, S.

    Duncan, Colonel F.

    Hobhouse, H.

    Duncombe, A.

    Holloway, G.

    Dyke, right hon. Sir W. H.

    Howard, J.

    Howorth, H. H.

    Edwards-Moss, T. C.

    Hoyle, I.

    Egerton, hon. A. de T.

    Hozier, J. H. C.

    Elliot, hon. A. R. D.

    Hubbard, E.

    Elliot, hon. H. F. H.

    Hunt, F. S.

    Ellis, J.

    Isaacs, L. H.

    Ellis, T. E.

    Isaacson, F. W.

    Ewing, Sir A. O.

    Jackson, W. L.

    Eyre, Colonel H.

    Jeffreys, A. F.

    Farquharson, Dr. R.

    Johnston, W.

    Feilden, Lieut.-Gen. R. J.

    Joicey, J.

    Kennaway, Sir J. H.

    Fellowes, A. E.

    Kimber, H.

    Fenwick, C.

    King, H. S.

    Fergusson, right hon. Sir J.

    King-Harman, right hon. Colonel E. R.

    Field, Admiral E.

    Knatchbull-Hugessen, H. T.

    Fielden, T.

    Firth, J. F. B.

    Knowles, L,

    Fisher, W. H.

    Lafone, A.

    Fitzgerald, R. U. P.

    Laurie, Colonel R. P.

    Fitzwilliam, hon. W. H. W.

    Lawrence, Sir J. J. T.

    Lawrence, W. F.

    Fitz-Wygram, General Sir F. W.

    Leake, R.

    Lefevre, right hon. J. G. S.

    Fletcher, Sir H.

    Flower, C.

    Legh, T. W.

    Folkestone, right hon. Viscount

    Lewisham, right hon. Viscount

    Forwood, A. B.

    Llewellyn, E. H.

    Fry, L.

    Long, W. H.

    Gardner, H.

    Macdonald, right hon. J. H. A.

    Gathorne-Hardy, hon. A. E.

    MacInnes, M,

    Gedge, S.

    Mackintosh, C. F.

    Gent-Davis, R.

    Maclean, F. W.

    Giles, A.

    Maclure, J. W.

    Gilliat, J. S.

    M'Calmont, Captain J.

    Goldsworthy, Major General W. T.

    M'Lagan, P.

    Madden, D. H.

    Gorst, Sir J. E.

    Malcolm, Col. J. W.

    Goschen, rt. hn. G. J.

    Maple, J. B.

    Gray, C. W.

    Marriott, right hon. W. T.

    Grenall, Sir G.

    Grey, Sir E.

    Maskelyne, M. H. N. Story-

    Grimston, Viscount

    Grotrian, F. B.

    Matthews, rt. hon H.

    Grove, Sir T. F.

    Maxwell, Sir H. E.

    Gunter, Colonel R.

    Mayne, Admiral R. C.

    Gurdon, R. T.

    Mills, hon. C. W.

    Hall, C.

    Milvain, T.

    Hamilton, right hon. Lord G. F.

    More, R. J.

    Morrison, W.

    Hamilton, Lord E.

    Mowbray, rt. hon. Sir J. R.

    Hamilton, Col. C. E.

    Hamley, Gen. Sir E. B.

    Mowbray, R. G. C.

    Mulholland, H. L.

    Hankey, F. A.

    Murdoch, C. T.

    Hartington, Marq. of

    Noble, W.

    Hastings, G. W.

    Norris, E. S.

    1676

    Northcote, hon. Sir H. S.

    Smith, A.

    Spencer, J. E.

    Norton, R.

    Stanhope, rt. hon. E.

    O'Neill, hon. R. T.

    Stansfeld, right hon. J.

    Palmer, Sir C. M.

    Stewart, M. J.

    Parker, hon. F.

    Talbot, J. G.

    Paulton, J. M.

    Taylor, F.

    Pease, H. F.

    Temple, Sir R.

    Pelly, Sir L.

    Thorburn, W.

    Picton, J. A.

    Tomlinson, W. E. M.

    Plunket, right hon. D. R.

    Trevelyan, right hon. Sir G. O.

    Pomfret, W. P.

    Trotter, H. J.

    Price, T. P.

    Tyler, Sir H. W.

    Raikes, right hon. H. C.

    Vernon, hon. G. R.

    Vincent, C. E. H.

    Rankin, J.

    Vivian, Sir H. H.

    Rathbone, W.

    Walsh, hon. A. H. J.

    Reid, R. T.

    Wayman, T.

    Ridley, Sir M. W.

    Webster, Sir R. E.

    Ritchie, right hon. C. T.

    West, Colonel W. C.

    Whitbread, S.

    Robertson, Sir W. T.

    Whitmore, C. A.

    Robertson, E.

    Will, J. S.

    Round, J.

    Williams, J. Powell-

    Russell, Sir C.

    Wilson, Sir S.

    Russell, Sir G.

    Wilson, H. J.

    Russell, T. W.

    Winn, hon. R.

    Saunderson, Colonel E. J.

    Wodehouse, E. R.

    Wolmer, Viscount

    Sellar, A. C.

    Wood, N.

    Seton-Karr, H.

    Wortley, C. B. Stuart-

    Shaw-Stewart, M. H.

    Wright, C.

    Sidebottom, T. H.

    Wright, H. S.

    Simon, Sir J.

    Yerburgh, R. A.

    Sinclair, W. P.

    Slagg, J.

    TELLERS.

    Smith, right hon. W. H.

    Douglas, A. Akers-Walrond, Col. W. H.

    NOES.

    Abraham, W. (Glam.)

    Dimsdale, Baron R.

    Abraham, W. (Limerick, W.)

    Dodds, J.

    Dorington, Sir J. E.

    Acland, C. T. D.

    Esslemont, P.

    Agg-Gardner, J. T.

    Ferguson, R. C. Munro-

    Allison, R. A.

    Finucane, J.

    Atherley-Jones, L.

    Fitzwilliam, hon. W. J. W.

    Barttelot, Sir W. B.

    Bentinck, rt. hn. G. C.

    Foljambe, C. G. S.

    Bentinck, W. G. C.

    Forster, Sir C.

    Biggar, J. G.

    Foster, Sir W. B.

    Blane, A.

    Fowler, rt. hon. H. H.

    Bridgeman, Col. hon. F. C.

    Fraser, General C. C.

    Bruce, hon. R. P.

    Fulton, J. F.

    Brunner, J. T.

    Gaskell, C. G. Milnes-

    Byrne, G. M.

    Gill, T. P.

    Cameron, C.

    Gladstone, right hon. W. E.

    Cameron, J. M.

    Campbell, H.

    Gladstone, H. J.

    Carew, J. L.

    Gourley, E. T.

    Causton, R. K.

    Halsey, T. F.

    Cavan, Earl of

    Harrington, E.

    Clark, Dr. G. B.

    Hayden, L. P.

    Cochrane-Baillie, hon. C. W. A. N.

    Hayne, C. Seale-

    Heath, A. R.

    Conway, M.

    Hooper, J.

    Corbet, W. J.

    Howell, G.

    Cossham, H.

    Hulse, E. H.

    Cremer, W. R.

    Hunter, W. A.

    Cross, H. S.

    James, hon. W. H.

    Dillon, J.

    Jennings, L. J.

    1677

    Kay-Shuttleworth, rt. hon. Sir U. J.

    Penton, Captain F. T.

    Pickard, B.

    Kelly, J. R.

    Pickersgill, E. H.

    Kenny, C. S.

    Pinkerton, J.

    Kerans, F. H.

    Playfair, rt. hon. Sir L.

    Kilbride, D.

    Lalor, R.

    Powell, F. S.

    Leahy, J.

    Power, P. J.

    Lewis, Sir C. E.

    Redmond, W. H. K.

    Lockwood, F.

    Reed, Sir E. J.

    Lowther, hon. W.

    Reed, H. B.

    Lubbock, Sir J.

    Richard, H.

    Lyell, L.

    Roscoe, Sir H. E.

    M'Arthur, A.

    Rowlands, J.

    M'Arthur, W. A.

    Schwann, C. E.

    M'Donald, P.

    Selwyn, Capt. C. W.

    M'Donald, Dr. R.

    Sheehan, J. D.

    M'Ewan, W.

    Sidebottom, W.

    M'Laren, W. S. B.

    Smith, S.

    Mahony, P.

    Spencer, hon. C. R.

    Mappin, Sir F. T.

    Stack, J.

    Mattinson, M. W.

    Stanhope, hon. P, J.

    Montagu, S.

    Stewart, H.

    Morgan, O. V.

    Sullivan, D.

    Morley, rt. Hon. J.

    Summers, W.

    Morley, A.

    Sutherland, A.

    Mundella, right hon. A. J.

    Thomas, A.

    Tuite, J.

    Newark, Viscount

    Wallace, R.

    Newnes, G.

    Wardle, H.

    Nolan, Colonel J. P.

    Watt, H.

    Nolan, J.

    Webster, R. G.

    O'Brien, J. F. X.

    Weymouth, Viscount

    O'Brien, P. J.

    Williams, A. J.

    O'Brien, W.

    Wilson, I.

    O'Connor, A.

    Woodall, W.

    O'Connor, J.

    Woodhead, J.

    O'Connor, T. P.

    O'Kelly, J.

    TELLERS.

    Paget, Sir R. H.

    Chaplin, right hon. H.

    Parker, C. S.

    Morgan, right hon. G. O.

    Parnell, C. S.

    Resolved, That Questions for the Closure of Debate under Standing Order XIVA shall be decided in the affirmative, if, when a Division be taken, it appears by the numbers declared from the Chair that not less than One Hundred Members voted in the Majority in support of the Motion.

    III.—DISORDERLY CONDUCT.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH),in rising to move the third Rule against "disorderly conduct," said, he proposed the Rule with great regret; but scenes that were in the memory of hon. Members, and which occurred during the last Session, showed the necessity of such a Rule. The Government felt that if the House was to maintain its ancient character, power should be given to the Speaker or the Chairman of Committee to name a Member on the spot when the conduct of the Member was grossly disorderly. He thought the Rule would recommend
    1678
    itself to the good feeling of hon. Members on both sides of the House, for it was not directed against any one section of Members, but against disorderly Members generally whoever they might be.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That Mr. Speaker or the Chairman do order Members whose conduct is grossly disorderly to withdraw immediately from the House during the remainder of that day's sitting; and that the Sergeant-at-Arms do act on such orders as he may receive from the Chair, in pursuance of this Resolution. But if, on any occasion, Mr. Speaker or the Chairman deems that his powers under this Standing Order are inadequate, he may name such Member or Members in pursuance of the Standing Order (Order in Debate), or he may call upon the House to adjudge upon the conduct of such Member or Members.
    "Provided always, That Members who are ordered to withdraw under this Standing Order, or who are suspended from the service of the House under the Standing Order (Order in Debate), shall forthwith withdraw from the precincts of the House, subject, however, in the case of such suspended Members, to the proviso in that Standing Order regarding their service on Private Bill Committees."—(Mr. W. H. Smith.)
    MR. WHITBREADsaid, he wished to say a few words on this proposal of the Government; and, first, with regard to the last words of the first paragraph—
    "Or he may call upon the House to adjudge upon the conduct of any such Member or Members."
    He could not understand what was the meaning of those words. There were two alternatives. First, that the Chair might order a Member to withdraw from the House altogether, which was a ready way of putting an end to disorderly conduct; secondly, the Speaker or Chairman might act under the Rule and name a Member in pursuance of the Standing Order. But he might also call upon the House to adjudge upon the conduct of the Member. The two first cases were governed by Rules which prevented debate; but this last proposal would immediately throw the whole question open, and there would be a debate as to whether the hon. Member had been so disorderly as to justify the punishment which might be given. It seemed to him, therefore, that instead of saving time this Rule would certainly waste time, and instead of quelling disorder it would rise to greater heat. Then, with regard to the latter part of the Rule, he would ask the right hon.

    1679
    Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) whether there had been any practical inconvenience in allowing a Member who had been suspended to remain within the precincts of the House? If in practice that had not been the case, then, he said, this was a needless aggravation of the punishment. They called on a Member to be in his place to serve on a Committee on a Private Bill, and yet they were to exclude him from all other service. He could not think that this was necessary. If the authorities of the House were to say that it was necessary, then he submitted that it should be in the judgment of the Chair, at the moment, if necessary, to order the Member to withdraw from the precincts of the House. One could hardly imagine such a case; but in case of need the decision should lie with the Speaker or the Chairman of Ways and Means. Upon the general question of this Rule he pointed out that it was a grave and new power to place in the hands of the Chair. He was not prepared to say that he did not think some cause might have arisen for increased power in this direction. It was, after all, a mitigation of the severity of the existing Rule, which ordered that, if a Member was named for disorderly conduct, he should be suspended for at least a week. The present Rule was so far a mitigation that it provided for suspension for one night and no longer. It was true that this was left entirely in the discretion of the Speaker and the Chairman; and after the best consideration he had been able to give to the subject, he was not unwilling to intrust that limited power to those high officials, believing as he did that when the responsibility rested entirely upon them, and when they were not afterwards sheltered in any way by a Vote of the House, they would be very slow to exercise these powers. And it was, after all, a question on which the Speaker or the Chairman were able at once to pronounce judgment. They were witnesses of the disorder; and, that being so, he thought they might safely be trusted never to suspend the Member under this Rule unless the disorder was gross and patent. That brought him to the consideration of a point on which he desired to address the House. He trusted that if ever this Rule were put in operation, both those
    1680
    high officials would have regard to the fact whether or not there had been provocation. He did feel, after what had happened in the House in recent years, that there was some necessity for making a protest on that ground. They had heard hon. Members in that House make charges against other hon. Members which he ventured to say, if such things continued, would make it impossible to hope for order in debate. They were quite aware of the decision which Mr. Speaker had given when appealed to; and he knew that it was strictly in accordance with precedent — namely, that a Member making a charge made it upon his own responsibility. That was the decision in old days; but in old days with that decision there went this security, that it was quite certain that if the hon. Member made a heinous charge against another, and failed to go to the proof, he would meet with the contempt of all Parties in the House. He was not so sure that that security existed now. Those were days when Parliament was jealous of the honour of every Member who sat in that House; those were the days before Parliament had surrendered its guardianship of the honour and character of its Members; those were the days before it was not the fashion to tell hon. Members against whom charges were made in that House— "If you think you are aggrieved, you can right yourselves in the Law Courts." He did not want, however, to rake up that controversy; that matter was settled, he thought lamentably, on a former occasion; but he did say that if the same line of conduct was to be pursued in future, and they had had some indication of it during the present Session—if hon. Members were to be allowed to make charges of the gravest and most heinous character against other hon. Members of that House, before any heat or disorder was produced on an occasion of the kind, it would be necessary for the whole House to have regard to the question as to whether provocation had been offered or not. He had thought it necessary to say these few words on a question which seemed to him of late years to have become very grave, and he hoped that in future charges of this nature would not be made unless hon. Members were ready to go on to the proof not elsewhere, but in that House.
    MR. DILLONsaid, it was impossible to his mind to approach the consideration of that question without taking into view the effect which might possibly come about with regard to the relations of the Chair and Members in different parts of the House. He was strongly of opinion that the power to punish any Member of the House ought to be retained absolutely within the immediate control of the House itself, and that the liberty, credit, and position of a Member of the House ought not to be placed at the mercy of any man, no matter whether of the Speaker or of the Chairman of Committees. He did not intend to go into the matter which had been alluded to by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread), but he (Mr. Dillon) said that it was a matter of the utmost delicacy for the Chair, and one which the Speaker or the Chairman of Committees would eagerly wish to be relieved from, to decide in a time of great excitement in that House, when retorts and charges were hurled from one side to another, upon whom the blame rested. He remembered an hon. Member who never rose in that House without making the most provocative and deliberate charges against other hon. Members. That hon. Member had made charges of that character against himself which on one occasion had caused him to appeal to the Chair for the protection which he received. He had read the other day the boast made by the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh (Colonel Sanderson), who said at Brighton that when he rose in the House he always succeeded in provoking Irish Members to rise and reply to him.
    COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I rise to Order. I beg the hon. Member's pardon. I did not say on all occasions. I said on some occasions.
    MR. DILLONsaid, the observation of the hon. and gallant Member went to strengthen the argument of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bedford. The hon. and gallant Member made a boast of an achievement in that direction, and had announced that so long as he had a seat in the House he would pursue the some course. He (Mr. Dillon) said that as long as that course was persisted in, it would certainly
    1682
    aggravate the difficulty of maintaining order in that House. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had stated on introducing this Rule that it was not aimed against any Party of the House. He trusted that that might be said of all those Rules. The Government stated that this Rule was equally necessary to control their adherents below the Gangway as to control Members in other parts of the House. He trusted hon. Gentleman opposite would follow out a totally different line of conduct in the future, and he might be allowed to say that if they did, there would be no need to apply the Rule to hon. Members on his side. If there had ever been disorder in the House he claimed the right to say that it had not had its origin among hon. Members on these Benches; if it had taken the shape of violence or disorder coming from the representatives of Irish constituencies, it had been the result of a set that had been made upon a certain section of the House. An attempt had been made to treat them differently from the way in which any other section of the House had been treated. Coming to the more general question of the operation of the Rule the fear he had —looking at the matter simply from a point of view of a Member of the House —was, that it would inevitably tend to make the Speaker a partizan. Let the House consider what occurred in the American House of Representatives; they saw there a fierce Party struggle being carried on and the Speaker expected to carry out the wishes of his supporters and that he was a slave of his Party in the sense of carrying out their views. Again, in one of the great Dependencies of this country—in the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, where very stringent powers were in the hands of the Speaker, they had seen every single Member of the Front Opposition Bench successively carried out of the House by the orders of the Speaker, the Secretary of State for the Home Department denounced, and the Speaker called a dirty tool of the Government. He did not say they would ever reach that point; but he did say that such an example ought to carry with it a warning to Members of that House before they went many steps in that direction. He regarded it as a most unfortunate thing that in carrying

    1683
    out a penal law, which always left more or less bad feeling in the mind of an hon. Member to whom it was applied, the Speaker should not have the protection of a Vote of the House, but should be compelled to execute the sentence himself. Take a case of which he had been a witness in that House, where the Speaker or Chairman of Committees named a Member to the House in mistake, being under the impression that he was the originator of the disorder. He would, under this Rule, leave the hon. Member so situated under a stronger feeling of having suffered unjustly. He considered this an unnecessary Rule, and as such he protested against it. So far from its having a good effect, he believed its effect would be exactly contrary. If Irish Members in that House were treated with ordinary decency and civility, there would, so far as they were concerned, be no need for any Business Rules whatever, and they would then be able to carry on the work of the House on those old lines which had obtained for centuries; whereas the power now sought to be placed in the Chair would, in his opinion, not only detract from the precedings of the House, but also very much detract from the authority of the Speaker.
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he was sorry to hear the line of argument pursued by the two hon. Gentlemen who had preceded him, All the objections which had been raised as to the injustice of this Rule applied with far greater point to the original rule, by which the Speaker, with the consent of the House, was empowered to suspend a Member from his duty. The Rule, as now proposed, was a distinct mitigation of the very heavy penalties which followed on a Member being named by the Chair. The House, as a rule, would never refuse to support the Chair, and thus this Rule was a mitigation of the severity of the former one. With regard to the person to whom the Rule was to apply, it must often happen in an Assembly of 670 Members that some individual—overcome with intense excitement or emotion —should be guilty of some breach of Order. All this Rule did was to give power to the Chair to order him to withdraw, and thus give him time to come to a more reasonable frame of mind.
    1684
    With respect to the words of the Rule, he would ask the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury. It appeared to him that lines 5 to 10 of the proposed Rule were unnecessary. Three alternatives were given. The Speaker might order a Member to withdraw, he might name a Member, or he might call upon the House to adjudge upon the conduct of such Member. What the latter alternative meant he did not know. It certainly required explanation. In his opinion it would be quite sufficient for the Speaker or the Chairman to have the power of relieving the House from the presence of an hon. Member who was labouring under temporary excitement without repeating in the Rule the words which, under the existing Rule, gave the Speaker or the Chairman power to name any hon. Member. He also objected to the saving Proviso. He considered the last words of the Rule—
    "Subject, however, in the case of such suspended Members to the proviso in that Standing Order regarding their service on Private Bill Committees "
    totally unnecessary. For these reasons he would suggest the omission of lines 5 to 10, and a portion of lines 13 to 15.
    THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES)said, he was glad that his noble Friend (Lord Randolph Churchill) had taken exception to the language of the Resolution, as his doing so would enable him (Mr. Raikes) to explain the matter to the House. The proposed Rule had been drawn with the object of placing before hon. Members at a glance the three classes of offences which the Rule was intended to deal with. In the first place, there was to be placed in the hands of the Speaker or the Chairman the power which, he believed, existed in the case of the Chairman of almost every public meeting—that of requiring a person to withdraw who, by offensive and improper conduct, was bringing scandal on the proceedings and interrupting the course of Public Business. That power did not at present exist, but it was a mitigating Resolution, because it would enable the Speaker to exercise that power of summary jurisdiction by requiring a disorderly Member at once to withdraw, in which case the withdrawal would only cover the whole of that Sitting, without being under the

    1685
    necessity of submitting his conduct to the House, and thereby calling down upon him a punishment of at least one week's exclusion. In the second place, that was to say, a graver breach of order in Debate, the Speaker would exercise the power given to him by the Standing Order with regard to order in Debate, and by naming a Member would submit his conduct to the House, which, if it thought fit, might then proceed to pass upon him a sentence of one week's exclusion, or for repeated offences a longer exclusion. But in each of these cases the decision might be summary. While there might be minor offences which might be thus summarily punished, there remained a graver class of offences which could not be decided in that summary manner. In the third place, it further recited the power of the Speaker or the Chairman in the event of an hon. Member being guilty of a still more grave offence to call upon the House to adjudge upon his conduct, when a more severe form of punishment might be inflicted upon him. In such a case a debate might probably arise. It had not been deemed expedient, however, to relieve hon. Members who were so ordered to withdraw, or who were so suspended, from service on Private Bill Committees. It would certainly be more consonant with the dignity of the House that a Member who had committed so gross a violation of order in Debate should bring upon himself exclusion not only from the House itself, but also from its precincts. This Resolution had been drawn with special care. The intention was not to make a change in the practice of the House, except in the one respect of giving the Speaker power to inflict minor and summary punishment in the case of minor offenders. He deprecated all suggestions that the decline in Parliamentary manners in recent years had been brought about by hon. Members sitting in any particular quarter of the House, and especially regretted the somewhat inflammatory suggestions of the hon. Member for Bedford, which seemed calculated to lead to mutual recrimination.
    MR. JOHN MORLEYsaid, he concurred in the remark that it was desirable to discuss this Rule in an impartial temper, but he did not think that the observations of the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr.
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    Whitbread) were in the slightest degree of an inflammatory character. It was a matter of common knowledge that there had been instances of grossly disorderly conduct, which were undoubtedly due to regrettable provocation, and it was right to ask the House to bear in mind the possibility of such deplorable contingencies. If this Rule had proposed to extend the powers of the Chair with reference merely to offences which were aimed at by Standing Order No. 12, he should have had great difficulty in assenting to it, because, although it was true they had confidence in the impartiality of the Chair, nevertheless the safeguard of the assent of the House, which had been dwelt upon by some, had never seemed to him to be an adequate one. It meant, after all, the consent of the majority, and the majority might be depended upon to assent to the punishment of a Member of the minority. [Cries of "Oh, Oh!"] He did not say that that would be a special defect of a Conservative majority. The Rule, as he understood from the explanation, was to be applied not merely to offences mentioned in Standing Order No. 12, but also to a new offence; it was aimed at the new offence of grossly disorderly conduct. It was an offence which no section of the House could approve of or sympathize with, and the punishment that the Rule alloted to it seemed to him to be a punishment not unworthy of the nature of the offence; it was not excessive, and it marked the sense of the House that offences of this sort should be promptly dealt with. But the last two lines of the Rule he did not see any necessity for. He should have thought the Rule would have been much simpler and equally efficient if the last two lines were left out. Upon the point of exclusion from the precincts of the House he had no particular feeling; but he knew there was a feeling against Members who had been subjected to censure appearing in the precincts of the House as if no decision against them had been pronounced. While he should be as jealous as any Member could be of interfering with fair liberty of discussion, he could not see why any occupant of the Chair should be deprived of that power of peremptorily repressing grossly disorderly conduct which was possessed by the chairman of every public meeting.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he should have thought that this Rule would have been resented by every Member of the House as an insult to his self-respect. He wished he could induce hon. Members opposite to agree that a Member of that House should be regarded in the light of something more than his personal capacity. Every man in that House was the freely chosen Representative of tens of thousands of persons outside its walls, and it was from that fact that the dignity of a Member of the House was derived. The provisions of this Rule were an insult to the House of Commons, and were a great deal more like the powers of a schoolmaster dealing with his pupils than those which ought, in his opinion, to be vested in one who presided over the deliberations of Members of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General (Mr. Raikes) had put the case with great lucidity and with his usual courtesy, and he might perhaps be allowed to say that if all speeches were made in the same manner there would be no need at all for the Rule under consideration; but while they had Members going about the country boasting of their powers of vicarious vituperation, then he said the time had come when some such Rule might be required. Would anyone say that it conduced to the dignity of that House to enact that when a Member had been excluded from that Assembly by the presiding officer, a police constable outside should be at liberty to seize him and drive him out of the precincts of the House? He had seen the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) seized by the police and attendants, and a more disgusting and scandalous spectacle he had never witnessed. He was not at the time on the same amicable terms as now with that hon. Member, but he maintained that by that spectacle every Member of the House was personally degraded. It was now proposed to perpetuate that which was an accidental and he hoped a unique occurrence in the annals of the House. With reference to Members serving on Committees during suspension, he put this case:—A Member of the House was allowed to take part in all private and public Committees to which he was appointed; suppose that before a Committee upstairs there was a
    1688
    question of great commercial magnitude, such as the Manchester Ship Canal; a Member, in spite of having been excluded for grossly disorderly conduct, is allowed to form part of the tribunal that has to decide upon that momentous question and yet he was not fit to write his letters in the Library. That he thought was a reductio ad absurdum. He had never been guilty of grossly disorderly conduct, nor had he any wish to be, but he spoke of the dignity of hon. Members who were the Representatives of the people outside, and looking at that fact, he said the Government would do well to mitigate the effect of the Rule by excluding from it this most odious infringment of the liberty of the House.
    MR. HOWORTHsaid, he desired to ask if the powers of the Rule would extend to the Deputy Chairman who might be appointed. If the Rule was to bear that interpretation, then he thought that its provisions would be beyond the desires of some hon. Members on those Benches. The Speaker and the Chairman of Ways and Means were both officers elected after deliberate discussion, and in that respect stood in a position different from that of those who were occasionally appointed to fill the Chair.
    SIR LYON PLAYFAIRsaid, the House would do well to observe that the proposed Rule did not apply to ordinary debate; it was a new Rule to apply to certain disorderly conduct which the Chairman of every assembly in the world had power to put down. But it would seem that the Speaker or the Chairman has such large powers in the first part of the Order that the latter part was altogether unnecessary. In the first place, the disorderly Member had to withdraw immediately from the service of the House; then the Serjeant-at-Arms acted on such orders as he might receive from the Chair in pursuance of the Resolution; which might be that the Member should withdraw from the House or from the precincts of the House. That was a large power. But then came a much larger one —namely, that Rule 12 was brought into operation. The Speaker or Chairman might name a Member, who would then come under all the consequences of that Rule. But if he did come under them, there was no necessity for the last words of the concluding paragraph of the Rule

    1689
    that the Speaker "may call on the House to adjudge the conduct of such Member or Members." He considered the latter part of the Rule very offensive. Why should they order a Member to be sent out of the precincts of the House if they considered him fit to sit in Committee on an important private Bill. They gave the Speaker power to correct any disorder, and they allowed him to bring the Member under the Rule of ordinary debate, which contained strong penal powers. As he considered the portion of the Rule to which he had referred unnecessary, he should, in order to raise the question, move its omission.
    Amendment proposed, in line 8 to leave out from the words "Order in Debate" to the end of the Question.— (Sir Lyon Play fair.)
    SIR RICHARD PAGETsaid, he thought on consideration the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment would see that it did not entirely effect the purpose he had in view. Standing Order No. 12 was incorporated in this Rule only to the extent of naming a Member, and the further powers contained in that Rule, which were expressed in words at the end, would be distinctly excluded by the fact that they were in the new Rule. The expression of a certain portion of the Rule directly, would clearly be held to be an exclusion of the remaining portion, which was not so important. If these words had any value whatever, of which he had considerable doubt, he was disposed to agree with the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) that they should leave out all the words after Resolution in line 4 so that the Rule would read—
    "That Mr. Speaker or the Chairman do order Members whose conduct is grossly disorderly to withdraw immediately from the House during the remainder of that day's debate, and that the Sergeant-at-Arms do act on such orders as he may receive from the Chair in pursuance of this Resolution."
    If the words were retained at all the addition of the words "according to ancient usage" could be introduced at the end of the paragraph to make clear what had been explained to the House by the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General (Mr. Raikes). The right hon. Gentleman had said there were three alternatives, and that the
    1690
    third alternative consisted of a paragraph by which power was retained by the House to deal with Members offending according to ancient usage. These words then should be inserted at the end of the paragraph, if the concluding portion of it was retained. If he were allowed he would move to leave out all the words after Resolution in line 4 to the end of the paragraph.
    MR. SPEAKER: I must point out that as there is an Amendment before the House it would not be competent to the hon. Baronet to move now the omission of these words.
    SIR RICHARD PAGETsaid, he would suggest that the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Lyon Playfair) should withdraw his Amendment.
    THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Mr. COURTNEY)said, that the point turned upon the construction of the Rule. If the Rule stopped at the word "Resolution" no doubt the existing Rule 12 would remain entire; but Rule 12 did not touch grossly disorderly conduct generally, it only applied to special forms of it. The desire was to extend the summary form of procedure under Order 12 to grossly disorderly conduct other than that which was included in Rule 12.
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, that over and over again Members had been suspended by the Speaker under Rule 12, not for wilfully disregarding the Rules of the House or of the Chair, but for wilfully disorderly conduct. He still held to the view that the words to which he objected would tend to weaken rather than to strengthen the Rule.
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, that he should not have proposed the Rule if it had not been held by the Government and all who had been responsible for the conduct of Business in the House that some further powers ought to be given to the Authorities in the event of a Member being guilty of grossly disorderly conduct. If the words to which his noble Friend objected were not inserted he was advised by high authority that the power reserved under Standing Order 12 would not exist in connection with this Rule.
    SIR GEORGE TREVELYANsaid, he felt bound to protest against the wording of the last paragraph, which not only inflicted a

    1691
    new and severe punishment upon a Member guilty of a new offence, but likewise inflicted a new and very much more severe punishment upon a Member guilty of an old offence which was quite sufficiently punished already. The Rule proposed to exclude from the precincts of the House, not only Members who had been ordered to withdraw for grossly disorderly conduct, but Members suspended by a Vote of the House for a week, a fortnight, or a month. This was a very severe punishment, and very grave reasons should be given for it. He thought they ought to be extremely unwilling to interfere with the dignity and comfort of hon. Members, and that they should only do it under the teaching of experience. Now, experience showed that no inconvenience whatever had come from allowing hon. Members who had been suspended for a single evening for misconduct, for which they would often in their cooler moments be exceedingly sorry, to be present within the precincts of the House. He (Sir George Trevelyan) remembered an occasion on which a number of Members who were suspended for their conduct in the House were seen in the Gallery, and no impropriety occurred in consequence. He thought that no such large punishment as that now proposed should be instituted without a public reason being given for doing so.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH)said, he thought that the right hon. Baronet who had last spoken (Sir George Trevelyan) was, perhaps, sufficiently answered by the fact that the right hon. Gentleman who sat next him had expressed his intention to vote for that proposal. He had himself, unfortunately, been absent from the House for a great part of last Session, but he had watched, as well as he could the course of events during that period, and he ventured to say that many things which occurred during that time were a scandal and a disgrace to the House; that their existing Rules on the subject of disorder were proved to be utterly inadequate to deal with them, and that such scandals and disgraces, whether arising from the conduct of hon. Members on the one side of the House or the other, ought to be repressed with due severity; and that they would not be so repressed
    1692
    unless their Rules were amended in the way now proposed and the penalty was made a real one by exclusion from the precincts of the House as well as from the House itself.
    MR. JOHN MORLEYsaid, he would like to explain that he had not said that he should necessarily vote for exclusion from the precincts of the House, but that he had personally no strong opinion on the matter, and that in the case of extraordinary misconduct he saw no objection to exclusion from the precincts. What his right hon. Friend objected to was to that being added to the penalties imposed under Rule 12. In regard to what the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) had described truly enough as the scandals of last year, he (Mr. John Morley) said that those scandals were not entirely confined to one part of the House. The right hon. Baronet had failed to show that those scandals had arisen in any degree from the presence of Members in the precincts of the House, and that was the point which had to be made out.
    MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, he had a few remarks only to make on this subject of the exclusion of Members from the precincts of the House, particularly those Members who were required to attend to their duties upon Select Committees. There was nothing more painful or irritating than to be compelled by some duty to come down to that building and yet to be excluded from the precincts of the House, except so far as their duty was compulsory on them. He could speak of that with the experience of three years and he trusted he might appeal to the House not to place upon others the indignities which he had himself felt very severely.
    MR. STAVELEY HILLsaid, he rose for the purpose of referring to the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Leeds (Sir Lyon Playfair) with regard to the naming of Members; and also to the point upon which the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) had just spoken. The words which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to leave out were absolutely unnecessary to be retained. The matter stood thus; the right hon. Gentleman admitted that they should retain the words of the Rule, which provided that the Speaker or the Chairman may

    1693
    name the Member. Then came in Standing Order 12, which provided in certain cases that a further punishment should apply. Those words being in the Rule, was there anything excluded from the operation of Rule 12? If not, then they were adding words which were unnecessary and which could not assist in any further suppression of the offence which he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) they all desired to put a stop to. With regard to the second part of the Rule—namely, that which related to the exclusion of Members from the precincts of the House, he entirely agreed with the words which had fallen from the hon. Member for Northampton. There were Committees Upstairs when the House was sitting as well as when it was not sitting; a Member, although he might be excluded from the House, would, as a Member of one of those Committees be bound to attend to the Committee work, and if the Proviso at the end of the Rule were carried, that hon. Member might be dodged up and down by some Officer of the House to see that he did not remain within the precincts when his Committee was not sitting, It would be much better to allow access to the precincts of the House and to make it clear that it was only intended that the offending Member should not come within the walls of the House itself.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, he had listened to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), who said that, although he was not in the House last year, he had read the accounts of what had taken place. Of course, hon. Members knew well what newspaper reports were worth; but as far as his experience went he could say that the House was not more disorderly now than it was 12 years ago. He was at that time one of a small minority, and he remembered that he used not to receive a very great amount of consideration at the hands of the majority. But things had changed since then, and he was now listened to with patience, and received a fair amount of consideration. He was himself very much opposed to these penal Rules; because, as hon. Members would be aware, the statutory power of Mr.
    1694
    Speaker was very much greater than the statutory power of former Speakers. Candidly, he believed that the power of the former Speaker was greater than that of the present Speaker, because a hint from him used to be sufficient to quell disorder in the House, whereas now it became a squabble as to whether a certain Rule should be brought into operation. For his own part he thought they should sweep away all these penal Rules and allow the moral influence of Mr. Speaker, which was formerly sufficient, to make itself felt. That, he believed, would be sufficient to quell any disorder that might arise.
    SIR JOHN SIMONsaid, it seemed to him a most unfortunate thing that they should place in the hands of Mr. Speaker undue responsibility for the suppression of disorder in that House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Sir George Trevelyan) had spoken of the hardship to a Member undergoing this terrible punishment; but he (Sir John Simon) felt much more for the Speaker himself and for the dignity of that House. Until a few years ago, Mr. Speaker was the servant of the House, but he was now becoming its master. That could not conduce to the dignity of the House, that the Chairman or the Speaker should, as it had been described, pounce down upon hon. Members and treat them like so many school boys, ordering them out and punishing them according to his will. He thought that was not consistent with the dignity of the House, nor did he think the power was one which it would be agreeable to the Speaker or Chairman to possess. It appeared to him that the Speaker had already power enough under a Rule which authorized him to name a Member for contravening the Rules of the House. He had voted with the Government on the last Rule relating to the number of Members necessary for putting the Closure Rule in operation. This was not a Party Question at all, and in that Division he had voted against his own honoured Leader. But the Question now before the House concerned every Member of it individually. It concerned the dignity of the House, and the power now sought to be given was one that ought not to be conferred, in his opinion, either upon the

    1695
    Speaker or on the Chairman of Committees.
    CAPTAIN SELWYNsaid, he was unable to agree with the right hon. Gentleman opposite that there was no inconvenience suffered from a Member ordered to withdraw, remaining within the precincts of the House. He thought that those who witnessed what occurred last Session would agree with him; he referred to the fact that a Member who had been ordered to withdraw came into the Gallery of the House and kept his hat on in order to show to the rest of the world that he was a Member of the House in disgrace. He thought that scene should induce hon. Members of the House to vote that the words excluding Members under certain circumstances from the precincts of the House should be retained in the Rule.
    DR. CLARKsaid, he appealed to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House (Mr. W. H. Smith) to compromise this portion of the Rule to some extent, because, as it stood at present, it was grossly unjust. At present a Member was compelled to attend on Committees even when ordered to withdraw from the service of the House. If the intention was to prevent the Member coming within the precincts he (Dr. Clark) said that Member ought to be discharged from attendance on Committee. It was not fair to require him to serve on Committees, and yet exclude him from the precincts of the House.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) has informed me that he wishes to move the insertion of certain words after the word "shall," in line 12; and therefore, although, as originally proposed, the Amendment was to leave out all the words after "Debate," in line 8, the Question I shall put is to omit all the words after the word "debate," in line 7 to the word "shall," in line 12.
    Question put,
    "That the words 'or he may call upon the House to adjudge upon the conduct of such Member or Members, provided always, That Members who are ordered to withdraw under this Standing Order, or who are suspended from the Service of the House under the Standing Order (Order in Debate) shall ' stand part of the Question."
    The House divided:—Ayes 135; Noes 85: Majority 50.—(Div. List, No. 18.)
    MR. WHITBREADsaid, that in order to mitigate the severity of the Rule as it now stood, he proposed to insert after the word "shall," in line 12, the words "if Mr. Speaker or the Chairman so direct." The Question had been pretty fully debated, and he did not desire to take up the time of the House by re-stating any of the arguments. He would simply point out what he thought had escaped the attention of the Government—namely, that the Rule would add tremendously to the severity of a Rule which was applicable to other offences. When anybody was suspended from the service of the House for a week or a month, he was to be further punished by exclusion from the precincts of the House. They might, under this Rule, exclude a Member from the precincts of the House for a month for an offence aimed at by the old Rule, and so exclude him while he was attending to Private Bill Legislation. That was a monstrous state of things, and one he did not think the Government ever contemplated when they drew up the Rule. It was possible, however, under peculiar circumstances, that in order to prevent disorder, it might be necessary to order a Member to withdraw from the precincts of the House. The Speaker or the Chairman, as the case might be, would be the best judge of the necessity of such an order. He put it to the First Lord of the Treasury whether any inconvenience had been found in practice to arise from Members under suspension being allowed to enter the precincts of the House. He did not think the right hon. Gentleman could point to a single instance of inconvenience, and therefore he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to accept the present Amendment, which was intended to mitigate the severity of the Rule as it stood.
    Amendment proposed, in line 12, after the word "shall," to insert the words "if Mr. Speaker or the Chairman so direct."—(Mr. Whitbread.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he was a little surprised the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) should propose to add these words, because the hon. Gentleman was strongly opposed on a former occasion to the proposal that the Speaker should have any voice whatever in the question of the closure—he objected to the additional and invidious responsibility thrown on the Chair. He (Mr. W. H. Smith) had no wish to make this Rule unnecessarily harsh against hon. Gentlemen who might come under its operation. It did not appear to him that the question as to whether hon. Members of the House had suffered inconvenience from the fact that hon. Members who had been suspended from the service of the House had been allowed to enter its precincts during their suspension was at all relevant to the point at issue. The question really was, whether the penalty inflicted upon hon. Members for grossly disorderly conduct, for disobeying the Speaker or the Chairman, for delaying the Business of the House, for exposing the House to contumely and reproach, was sufficient at present. It appeared to him that the only ground on which hon. Members could desire to have access to the precincts of the House was that of enabling them to discharge their duties as Members of the House. The privileges which the Library afforded, and the other privileges which they possessed, were privileges which were afforded to them solely as Members of the House; and, therefore, when they were suspended from the discharge of their duties, it was not unreasonable that they should also be suspended from the privileges. The only object the Government had in view in proposing this Rule was to prevent a repetition of the scenes which admittedly had disgraced the House of Commons. He hoped that the penalty which was now sought to be imposed upon Members guilty of disorderly conduct would be sufficient to prevent a repetition of scenes which all must deplore. He was reluctant to add to the invidious duty which undoubtedly the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman would throw upon the Chair; but if was the opinion of the majority of the House that such duty should be imposed upon the Chair, he would raise no objection to the proposed alteration. Personally, however,
    1698
    he thought it would be better to leave the Rule in the form in which it now stood.
    THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he hoped the Government would be disposed to adopt the Amendment of his hon. Friend (Mr. Whitbread), because it appeared to him to be almost the only way of escaping from a very great difficulty which had been pointed out in the course of the discussion. It was undoubtedly a very great hardship that Members suspended from the service of the House should be compelled to continue their services on Private Bill Committees, and yet, while they were sitting on Private Bill Committees, be excluded from the precincts of the House. It seemed to him that if the Rule was to be maintained in its present form, it would be almost absolutely necessary to reconsider whether Members suspended from the service of the House should not also, by the same act, be necessarily suspended from attendance upon Private Bill Committees. However, the suggestion of his hon. Friend (Mr. Whitbread) would sufficiently tide over the difficulty. Although he agreed with a great deal which had fallen from the First Lord of the Treasury, and although he could not say that the personal punishment which it was intended to inflict on Members under the new Rule was so serious that it ought to be considered as a very great aggravation of the penalty which the old Rule forced upon Members —although he entirely approved of the general scope and bearing of the Rule, it appeared to him the acceptance of the words moved by his hon. Friend would relieve the House from a considerable difficulty in which it found itself.
    SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he could not agree with the opinion which the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington) had expressed, because the responsibility cast by the Amendment upon the Speaker, and still more upon the Chairman, would be of such an invidious character that it would materially add to the difficulty of putting the Rule in force. As the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had said, if it was the will of the House that such an invidious duty as that proposed should be imposed upon the Chair, let it be so; but what might happen? A Member, possibly on the Ministerial

    1699
    side of the House, might commit some offence which might bring him under the operation of this Rule; he might be suspended from the service of the House and yet not excluded from the precincts of the House. Another Member, possibly on the Opposition side of the House, might also commit an offence bringing him under the operation of the Rule; he might be suspended from the service of the House, and also excluded from the precincts of the House. What accusations would then be made against the occupant of the Chair for partiality in the application of the Rule?
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, it was just as unreasonable to expect a Member to serve on a Committee, and yet be debarred from access to materials of information to be found in the Library, as it was to expect a Member to join in the debates in the House under an equal disadvantage. Suppose a Member of the Front Bench were suspended for disorderly conduct, was he to be debarred from access to his room at the back of the Speaker's Chair, where a great deal of the work of a Minister was carried on? If a Member on the other side of the House was suspended, it was conceivable that he would not be excluded from the precincts of the House by the Speaker; whereas it was conceivable that if a Member on the Opposition side of the House, was suspended, he would also be excluded from the privileges of the House. That was a very unfortunate illustration of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach); but it showed the danger there was lurking in this tinkering with the Rules of the House, which had a history going back through centuries. He did not believe much in any of these now Rules, but it did appear to be a piece of perfect absurdity to say that a Member should be suspended from the service of the House in the House itself and excluded from the precincts of the House—from the Library, for instance, where all records were kept—and yet expect him to serve on Committees upstairs. At the same time he did not at all like the Amendment of the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread), because it was moving in the direction of danger which he thought boded ill for that Assembly. He quite recognized that if disorder arose in such a place as that,
    1700
    the inevitable result was to throw more and more power into the hands of the presiding official. That, in itself, was a mischief; but he did not see how it was to be avoided. It was one of the penalties attaching to disorder, and the House was under the necessity of protecting itself against disorder. But the mischief to which he had referred ought to be reduced to the very lowest possible point, and, therefore, he disapproved of the suggestion of the hon. Member for Bedford, that discretion should be placed in the hands of the Chair.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 89; Noes 117: Majority 28.—(Div. List, No. 19.)
    SIR HENRY TYLERsaid, he wished to make a suggestion with regard to what fell from the noble Marquess the Member for the Rossendale Division of Lancashire (the Marquess of Hartington), to the effect that when Members were suspended from the service of the House and required to withdraw from its precincts, they were yet to be permitted to serve on Private Bill Committees. It had been pointed out already in the course of the debate that it would be a matter of great indignity to hon. Members if they were subject to interference on the part of the police in going to and from a Committee Room. He (Sir Henry Tyler) would, therefore, move an Amendment to omit all reference to Standing Committees from the Rule. If some words were not added to the end of the proposed Rule, it might be taken that the existing Standing Order No. 12 would still have force, and, therefore, he would move to add those words: "and shall ipso facto be exempted for the same period from service on the Committees." That, he thought, would get over the difficulty, because if that were adopted there would be no conflict between the new Rule and the Standing Order No. 12, "Order in Debate."
    Amendment proposed,
    In line 13, to leave out from the word "House" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words, "and shall, ipso facto, be exempted for the same period from service on Committees."—(Sir Henry Tyler.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. HENEAGEsaid, he thought it would be highly inconvenient to adopt the proposal, because it might happen that a Select Committee had been sitting 9 or 10 days when a Member serving on it was suspended from the service of the House. To take that Member off the Committee and put a new one in his place who knew nothing whatever about the matter before it would be grossly unjust to the parties. No doubt, they had to choose between two evils—that was to say, they must either relieve an hon. Member from service on Committees, or enable him while serving on a Committee to have access to the precincts of the House, although excluded from the House itself. If the Amendment were necessary to bring about good order in the House, he should be the first to support it; but he thought that under the new Rules, taken as a whole, they would not be at all likely to have scenes of disorder such as had been witnessed in the past. He thought that if the words proposed to be left out were omitted the place should be supplied, not by the Amendment moved, but by the words "during the remainder of the Sitting." What was wanted was to prevent any opportunity of fresh provocation on the part of a Member who had left the House in a bad temper, and the adoption of these words would give him 24 hours to cool, and if an hon. Member on the following morning was cool enough to attend on a Private Bill Committee he was surely cool enough to meet hon. Members in the precincts of the House.
    COLONEL NOLANsaid, he agreed with the right hon. Member who had preceded him (Mr. Heneage), as to the inconvenience of appointing a jury of four or five Members to consider a Private Bill, and then to withdraw one of them during the hearing of the case. He pointed out that sometimes the parties in fighting a Private Bill spent as much as £24,000 on the case, and that it would be grossly unfair to them to withdraw a juror in the manner proposed. In some cases one Member would be sufficient to turn a case, and it was not impossible to conceive that a Member having a considerable interest in the progress of a Private Bill might exert his influence to get a certain Member suspended in the House, so that he
    1702
    might be turned out of a Committee. Members might vote on a Division for a Member's suspension, not to punish him for his conduct in the House, but to shut him out of a Committee on which he was known to be hostile to a particular Bill or scheme. If the Amendment proposed were adopted, the House would have to adopt altogether new arrangements for Committees. The hon. Member for Yarmouth (Sir Henry Tyler) had acted with a good-natured desire to get the House out of a difficulty; but if his Amendment were to hold good, they might just as well hand over Private Bill legislation to the House of Lords, or to a Committee of Judges.
    MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, he had put to the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury the grave side of the matter, and he would now put to him the ridiculous side. Supposing that it were necessary for a Member of a Committee to go to the Library of the House in order to refer to certain authorities to guide him in his deliberations—was he to be allowed to go there, or was he to have the books brought out to him, a thing which might be physically impossible if the House were not sitting, as the Librarians would not be in attendance?
    MR. STAVELEY HILLsaid, he trusted that there would be no attempt to exclude Members from Committees on the ground of anything which had happened in the House. Members of Committees were selected by independent authorities, and at the time a Member was suspended he might have sat upon a Committee throughout the consideration of the Preamble of a Bill. Because that Member came into the House, and in a moment of excitement did something which placed him under the penalty of suspension, it would be very unjust to the parties interested in the Private Bill before the Committee if 25 per cent of the judicial force were withdrawn from the consideration of the measure. Such a proceeding might throw the parties into an expense of many thousands of pounds. He thought it only right to exclude a Member from the House itself if he were guilty of disorderly conduct, but he would not deprive him of his other privileges in the precincts of the House.
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he had listened to all the arguments which had been offered, and was bound to say that he thought the balance was in favour of retaining the Rule as it stood—that was to say, that Members serving on Private Bill Committees should not, in consequence of their suspension, be relieved of the duty of serving on those Committees. He hoped and believed that the Rule would be very rarely employed—so rarely that it would not operate at all on Members serving on Private Bill Committees. It was impossible to guard against every contingency that might arise in the case of hon. Members becoming amenable to the Rule. It was an exceedingly unfortunate thing at any time that an hon. Member should come under the censure of the House; but when he did so an Order of the House was more important than consideration for a Member's feelings; therefore it appeared to him (Mr. W. H. Smith) that they should adhere to the words on the Paper and reject the Amendment of his hon. Friend (Sir Henry Tyler). He had carefully weighed all the arguments which had been advanced with the strongest desire to meet the susceptibilities of hon. Members.
    SIR HENRY TYLERsaid, that, under the circumstances, he would ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave,withdrawn.
    Main Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 134; Noes 74: Majority 60.

    AYES.

    Addison, J. E. W.

    Chaplin, right hon. H.

    Agg-Gardner, J. T.

    Amherst, W. A. T.

    Charrington, S.

    Ashmead-Bartlett, E.

    Clarke, Sir E. G.

    Atkinson, H. J.

    Coghill, D. H.

    Baring, T. C.

    Colomb, Capt. J. C. R.

    Bartley, G. C. T.

    Commerell, Adml. Sir J. E.

    Barttelot, Sir W. B.

    Beach, right hon. Sir M. E. Hicks-

    Cozens-Hardy, H. H.

    Currie, Sir D.

    Beach, W. W. B.

    Davenport, H. T.

    Beadel, W. J.

    De Cobain, E. S. W.

    Beaumont, W. B.

    De Worms, Baron H.

    Bentinck, Lord H. C.

    Dimsdale, Baron R.

    Birkbeck, Sir E.

    Dorington, Sir J. E.

    Blundell, Colonel H. B. H.

    Duncombe, A.

    Dyke, rt. hn. Sir W. H.

    Bristowe, T. L.

    Brodrick, hon. W. St. J. F.

    Egerton, hon. A. de T.

    Elliot, hon. H. F. H.

    Brookfield, A. M.

    Ellis, Sir J. W.

    Burghley, Lord

    Eyre, Colonel H.

    Caldwell, J.

    Fellowes, A. E.

    Campbell, Sir A.

    Ferguson, R. C. Munro-

    1704

    Fergusson, right hon. Sir J.

    Lafone, A.

    Lees, E.

    Field, Admiral E.

    Lewisham, right hon. Viscount

    Fisher, W. H.

    Fitzgerald, R. U. P.

    Llewellyn, E. H.

    Folkestone, right hon. Viscount

    Long, W. H.

    Macdonald, right hon. J. H. A.

    Forwood, A. B.

    Fowler, Sir R. N.

    Madden, D. H.

    Fraser, General C. C.

    Matthews, rt. hn. H.

    Fry, L.

    Maxwell, Sir H. E.

    Fulton, J. F.

    Milvain, T.

    Gedge, S.

    Morley, right hon. J.

    Giles, A.

    Morley, A.

    Gilliat, J. S.

    Morrison, W.

    Goldsworthy, Major General W. T.

    Mulholland, H. L.

    Muntz, P. A.

    Goschen, rt. hon. G. J.

    Noble, W.

    Gray, C. W.

    Norris, E. S.

    Grimston, Viscount

    O'Neill, hon. R. T.

    Hamilton, right hon. Lord G. F.

    Pearce, Sir W.

    Pelly, Sir L.

    Hamilton, Col. C. E.

    Penton, Captain F. T.

    Hamley, Gen. Sir E. B.

    Playfair, right hon. Sir L.

    Hastings, G. W.

    Heathcote, Capt. J. H. Edwards-

    Pomfret, W. P.

    Powell, F. S.

    Heaton, J. H.

    Raikes, rt. hon. H. C.

    Heneage, right hon. E.

    Rankin, J.

    Herbert, hon. S.

    Rasch, Major F. C.

    Hermon-Hodge, R. T.

    Rathbone, W.

    Hill, right hon. Lord A. W.

    Ritchie, rt. hon. C. T.

    Robertson, Sir W. T.

    Hill, Colonel E. S.

    Sellar, A. C.

    Hill, A. S.

    Sidebotham, J. W.

    Hoare, E. B.

    Sidebottom, T. H.

    Hoare, S.

    Sidebottom, W.

    Holloway, G.

    Smith, rt. hon. W. H.

    Howard, J.

    Stanhope, rt. hon. E.

    Howorth, H. H.

    Stephens, H. C.

    Hunt; F. S.

    Temple, Sir R.

    Isaacs, L. H.

    Thorburn, W.

    Isaacson, F. W.

    Trotter, H. J.

    Jackson, W. L.

    Tyler, Sir H. W.

    Johnston, W.

    Webster, Sir R. E.

    Kelly, J. R.

    Whitbread, S.

    Kenyon, hon. G. T.

    Whitley, E.

    Kerans, F. H.

    Wortley, C. B. Stuart-

    Kimber, H.

    Yerburgh, R. A.

    King, H. S.

    Knatchbull-Hugessen, H. T.

    TELLERS.

    Douglas, A. Akers-Walrond, Col. W. H.

    Knowles, L.

    NOES.

    Abraham, W. (Glam.)

    Dillwyn, L. L.

    Abraham, W. (Limerick, W.)

    Dodds, J.

    Ellis, J.

    Acland, A. H. D.

    Ellis, T. E.

    Allison, R. A.

    Fenwick, C.

    Asquith, H. H.

    Finucane, J.

    Barran, J.

    Flower, C.

    Biggar, J. G.

    Fox, Dr. J. F.

    Broadhurst, H.

    Gill, T. P.

    Byrne, G. M.

    Haldane, R. B.

    Campbell, H.

    Hayden, L. P.

    Carew, J. L.

    Hayne, C. Seale-

    Clark, Dr. G. B.

    Hooper, J.

    Cobb, H. P.

    James, hon. W. H

    Corbet, W. J.

    Kenny, C. S.

    Cossham, H.

    Kilbride, D.

    Craven, J.

    Lalor, R.

    Crilly, D.

    Leahy, J.

    1705

    Leake, R.

    Rowlands, J.

    Macdonald, W. A.

    Schwann, C. E.

    M'Donald, P.

    Sheehan, J. D.

    M'Ewan, W.

    Stack, J.

    Mappin, Sir F. T.

    Stewart, H.

    Montagu, S.

    Sullivan, D.

    Mundella, rt. hn. A. J.

    Sutherland, A.

    Newnes, G.

    Thomas, A.

    Nolan, Colonel J. P.

    Tuite, J.

    Nolan, J.

    Wardle, H.

    O Brien, J. F. X.

    Warmington, C. M.

    O'Brien, P. J.

    Wayman, T.

    O'Connor, A.

    Will, J. S.

    O'Connor, J.

    Williams, A. J.

    O'Kelly, J.

    Wilson, H. J.

    Parnell, C. S.

    Woodhead, J.

    Pease, H. F.

    Wright, C.

    Pickersgill, E. H.

    Power, P. J.

    TELLERS.

    Reid, R. T.

    Bradlaugh, C.

    Roberts, J.

    Gourley, E. T.

    Roberts, J. B.

    Resolved, That Mr. Speaker or the Chairman do order Members whose conduct is grossly disorderly to withdraw immediately from the House during the remainder of that day's sitting; and that the Serjeant-at-Arms do act on such orders as he may receive from the Chair, in pursuance of this Resolution. But if, on any occasion, Mr. Speaker or the Chairman deems that his powers under this Standing Order are inadequate, he may name such Member or Members in pursuance of the Standing Order (Order in Debate), or he may call upon the House to adjudge upon the conduct of such Member or Members.
    Provided always, That Members who are ordered to withdraw under this Standing Order, or who are suspended from the service of the House under the Standing Order (Order in Debate), shall forthwith withdraw from the precincts of the House subject, however, in the case of such suspended Members, to the proviso in that Standing Order regarding their service on Private Bill Committees.

    IV.—IRRELEVANCE OR REPETITION.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH),in rising to move the next Rule, said, he thought the experience of last Session and of previous Sessions showed that the proposed Rule was necessary, for much obstruction had been caused by hon. Members repeating over and over again the precise words and arguments of "the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down." It was for the House itself to consider whether some check ought not, for its own credit and honour, to be put on this practice, which involved considerable delay to Public Business. The chairmen of all public meetings and the Presidents of every great Assembly had similar power to that contained in this Rule, and the House of Commons
    1706
    was the only great Assembly in the world whose Speaker or Chairman of Committees did not possess that power. He proposed the Rule in order that the House of Commons might no longer be an exception to the ordinary practice.
    Motion made, and Question proposed;
    "That Mr. Speaker or the Chairman, after having called the attention of the House or of the Committee to the conduct of a Member who persists in irrelevance or tedious repetition either of his own arguments, or of the arguments used by other Members in Debate, may direct him to discontinue his speech."—(Mr. William Henry Smith.)
    MR. JOHN MORLEYsaid, he thought the House could scarcely view with composure and self-control the extraordinary introduction of the First Lord of the Treasury to these words. It was perfectly certain that all Members, even those sitting on the Front Benches, constantly repeated, and even tediously repeated, the arguments used by their Colleagues. he could not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman really meant to take away the power of repeating an argument. No doubt, it was right and proper to prohibit a Member from repeating himself over and over again; but it seemed that the Rule, as at present worded, opened the way to an abuse of the power of the majority and of the power of the Chair. It was necessary, for the purpose of debate, for a Member to have power to repeat arguments used by others, as well as his own, even to the point of tedium; therefore he hoped that the Government would not press for the insertion of these words. If they did, he should certainly vote against them.
    MR. CHAPLINsaid, he hoped the House would not consider him guilty of great presumption if he asked them to consider the Amendment which stood in his name, and which was really an alternative to the Rule proposed by the right hon. Gentleman. He might be asked why he wished to substitute that Amendment for the Rule which stood on the Paper in the name of the right hon. Gentleman? He wished to do so for two reasons—first, because the Rule proposed by the right hon. Gentleman, with the exception of the addition at the end, was the same as the existing Rule, which was never really effective; and, in the second place, because his Amend-

    1707
    ment would relieve the Speaker or the Chairman of Committees of what must be considered, under any circumstances of the case, a very painful and disagreeable duty. He said the Rule had been ineffective in the past, and that was undoubtedly the case, because it must be in the memory of everyone that, except on two or three occasions, it had been inoperative altogether. This was one of the points in their Procedure which required more amendment than anything else, and with regard to which, whilst they were dealing with the Rules of Procedure, they should pass something which would be absolutely effective in the future. The House would agree with him that it would be greatly to be regretted if the relations between the Speaker and the Members of the House became relations of a penal character more than could be helped. It was to the Speaker, and to his counsel and advice, that every one of them, no matter in what quarter he might sit, always resorted when he felt himself in a difficulty of any sort; and he was certain Mr. Speaker was the last person in the world who would wish, by any duty imposed upon him, to see that courteous and kindly feeling which he had always shown towards hon. Members infringed or endangered by any Rule of the House. What was the evil hon. Members complained of? Everyone who sat in the House during the past two or three Sessions must know perfectly what it was. Over and over again, they had heard Members—he would not say in what particular part of the House— get up and, for one reason or other, spend hours and hours repeating the same thing, in almost the very same words, which had been used before by other Members, boring the House to such a degree that it became painful to sit on those Benches and witness the waste of time which went on. Everyone knew that state of things, and recognized it as an evil; and he was quite sure everyone was desirous to pass a Rule which would effectually deal with it in the future. He maintained that the Rule they had had in the past had failed to put a stop to this sort of thing, and it seemed to him that the Rule now proposed, even with the addition suggested, would be of no more use than the Rule already existing. He, therefore, asked the House, with the greatest
    1708
    deference and respect, to consider the Amendment which he would now venture to move. If his proposal were acceptable to the House, he should move an Amendment to it, to provide that the Speaker, before putting the Rule in motion to silence a Member, should caution him. They had seen, over and over again, in that House what little attention Members paid to cautions of this kind; but if in the future no attention was paid to a caution, Mr. Speaker would immediately proceed to inform the House that a Member had been guilty of this offence, and, the House having been informed of what had taken place, any Member could at once rise in his place and claim to move that the hon. Member addressing the House be no longer heard. That would simply be reviving a very old practice in the House which had been disused now for many years. The object of his Amendment was to give the House itself some real control over speeches which were of a tedious and irrelevant character, and which were made for the purpose of wasting, the time of the House and arresting the progress of Public Business. He would point out that no abuse of the Rule would be possible under any circumstances, for the reason that it could only operate after the intervention of Mr. Speaker. Its effect would be, in his opinion, to compel immediate attention on all occasions to the cautions addressed to hon. Members from the Chair —cautions which, in the past, as he had said, had been disregarded in a manner which had caused them all to regret the change which had taken place in the House of Commons during the past few years. He certainly believed that if his proposal were thought worthy of the serious consideration of the House it would go a long way towards meeting the evil which was universally acknowledged. The House would observe that he had made it obligatory on the Speaker formally to inform the House of this misconduct on the part of a particular Member; but, so far as he himself was concerned, he should be perfectly satisfied if the Rule provided that, upon Mr. Speaker having been compelled to caution a Member for the second time, it should be competent for any hon. Member to move that he be no longer heard. He had no desire to press the Amendment on the House in the form,

    1709
    in which it now stood, if it were objectionable to the House; but, inasmuch as the Rule at present in force had been of no use, he had framed this Amendment, which he thought would have the desired effect, and he now ventured to leave it in the hands of the House.
    Amendment proposed,
    In line 1, to leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "if it shall appear to Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman of Committees, that a Member is addressing the House with continued irrelevance, or tedious repetition, or that he is unduly and unnecessarily prolonging Debate and arresting the Progress of Public Business, Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman of Committees, may so inform the House or the Committee.
    "Thereupon any Member, rising in his place, may claim to move, That the Member in possession of the House be no longer heard.
    "Such Motion shall be put forthwith without Amendment or Debate, unless the Member in possession of the House elects to discontinue his speech, in which case he may so inform the Speaker, or Chairman of Committees, and the Question shall not be put.
    "A Member who is put to silence under this Rule by order of the House or the Committee is thereby prevented, on the first occasion, from taking part in any Debate during the remainder of that sitting; on the second occasion during a week; and on the third, or any subsequent occasion, during a month from the time when such order of the House, or of the Committee, has been made." —(Mr. Chaplin.)
    Question proposed,
    "That the words 'That Mr. Speaker or the Chairman, after having called the attention of the House or of the Committee to the conduc of a Member who persists in irrelevance or tedious repetition,' stand part of the Question."
    SIR. LYON PLAYFAIRsaid, he did not agree with the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Chaplin) that the existing Rule had not worked well On the contrary, he had never seen it disputed. No Speaker or Chairman would interfere, unless it were obvious that the irrelevancy or tedious repetition of a Member was indulged in for the pure purpose of obstruction. When Mr. Speaker had interfered the whole House agreed with him, and the ruling had been effective. The object of the Amendment was to stop the mouth of a Member for a week or a month, according to the irrelevancy he had shown. Where had the right hon. Member got precedent for such a proposal? The only one he knew was the practice of Kirk Sessions in Scotland, in ancient times. Such a record as—" Betty Macdonald's mouth was this day closit;" and a month afterwards—" Betty Macdonald's
    1710
    mouth was this day open it "—seemed to be the same process which the right hon. Gentleman wished to introduce into the Procedure of the House. The present Rule respecting irrelevancy was quite clear, and had been used effectively; whereas the addition proposed by the right hon. Member would be almost impossible of application.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN)said, he must point out that the Rule under discussion was entirely directed against a Member who persisted in irrelevance or tedious repetition. It had been wrongly assumed that Mr. Speaker would call to Order Members who were simply repeating arguments which had been advanced by previous speakers; but the fact was that the Rule was aimed at a totally different practice—namely, that of the constant repetition of the same arguments over and over again by Members sitting on the same side of the House, after the substance of the argument had been exhausted. That was a matter which was submitted to the discretion of Mr. Speaker, who would observe not only whether hon. Members were irrelevant or tedious, but whether, after his having called their attention to the point, they persisted in being irrelevant or tedious. He considered that his right hon. Friend (Mr. Chaplin) proposed to go rather too far, and impose a penalty which was rather disproportionate to the offence.
    COLONEL NOLANsaid, he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley) that it was impossible to avoid repetitions in the course of debate. He objected to its being made a crime to do such a thing. In some cases he could not conceive it possible for a Member to speak after a debate had been opened and replied to without repeating the arguments already used on one side or the other.
    SIR ROBERT FOWLERsaid, it seemed to be overlooked that the Rule was to be enforced by the Speaker or the Chairman. There would be no interference with the eloquence of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley), who would never repeat the arguments of his Colleagues, but what was aimed at was the prevention of such

    1711
    tedious debates as took place in 1881, when the House sat for 44 hours without intermission. If the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Leeds (Sir Lyon Playfair) were in his place he would agree—for he was Chairman of Committees at the time—that in 1881 Members rose one after another and repeated the same arguments hour after hour and night after night. It was against such a condition of things that this Rule was framed.
    MR. BARTLEYsaid, there was one point which seemed to have escaped notice. It had been assumed that the Question would be put from the Chair without debate, and that it would be at once agreed to. But, supposing the House thought that the punishment was being inflicted for a comparatively slight offence, it was conceivable that the House would not agree to the Resolution that the Member be not heard. In that case the position of the Chair would not be at all satisfactory, for the Chair would not be supported by the House. Such an event would be most damaging to the position of the Speaker or the Chairman. The proposal of the Government was more easily manageable than that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire, and therefore was the preferable of the two.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    MR. BRADLAUGHmoved, as an Amendment, the omission of the word "either" in line 3 of the proposed Rule. If the House were with him in regard to this omission he should move to omit the words "or of the arguments used by other Members in debate." The Rule would then be perfectly effective, because it would read—
    "The conduct of a Member who persists in irrelevance or tedious repetition of his own arguments."
    If a Member were tedious in the repetition of his own arguments he would bring himself within the scope of the Rule. If the Rule remained unaltered and an intricate argument had been addressed to the House by one Gentleman, the Gentleman who replied might very easily bring himself within the scope of the Rule. Such a contingency ought to be avoided if possible.
    Amendment proposed, in line 3, to leave out the word "either."—(Mr. Bradlaugh.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'either' stand part of the Question."
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he was afraid he would be obliged to oppose the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman. It appeared to him that it was practically certain that the discretion which was vested in the Chair would not be abused. No one would accuse the hon. Member of irrelevance, or of tedious repetition of his own arguments or of the arguments of others; but hon. Members who had attended the House constantly for some years past must be aware that there had been occasions when speech after speech had been made which consisted of nothing else but irrelevance, and of tedious repetitions of arguments which had been used previously. He understood quite well the objection of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley), but it must be remembered that everything depended upon the judgment with which the Rule was exercised; and unless the Speaker or Chairman of Committees were capable of exercising the discretion vested in them wisely, they were scarcely fitted for the responsible offices they held in the House.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 170; Noes 94: Majority 76.—(Div. List, No. 21.)
    Main Question put.
    Resolved, That Mr. Speaker or the Chairman, after having called the attention of the House or of the Committee to the conduct of a Member who persists in irrelevance or tedious repetition either of his own arguments, or of the arguments used by other Members in Debate, may direct him to discontinue his speech.

    V.—MOTIONS FOR ADJOURNMENT IN ABUSE OF THE RULES OF THE HOUSE.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH),in moving the adoption of the Rule, said, he believed there was a general feeling in the House that the form of proceeding which was referred to in the Rule was one which was frequently made use of for the purpose of obstruction. It was on that account that the Government asked the House to charge the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees with powers the exercise of which would conduce to

    1713
    the good conduct of the proceedings of the House.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That, if Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman of a Committee of the whole House, shall be of opinion that a Motion for the Adjournment of a Debate, or of the House, during any Debate, or that the Chairman do report Progress, or do leave the Chair, is an abuse of the Rules of the House, he may forthwith put the Question thereupon from the Chair, or he may decline to propose the Question thereupon to the House."— (Mr. W. H. Smith.)
    MR. HENRY H. FOWLERsaid, he quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that such Motions were a very fruitful source of obstruction and ought to be dealt with. But the last few words of the Rule formed a very novel suggestion, and he doubted whether there was any precedent for it. He put it to the right hon. Gentleman whether this was not stretching, in the desire to put down obstruction, the power of the Chair, and depriving the House of its own powers to an extent for which there could be no justification? He objected to the proposal upon we grounds; first of all because it threw great responsibility on the Chair in declining to put a Question that a Member moved; and, in the second place, because it placed the Chair in a very awkward position with the House and with the Member who made the Motion. It was throwing responsibility on the Chair which was sure to involve the Chair in friction with some section of the House. He thought the object which the right hon. Gentleman sought would be amply secured by enabling the Speaker or the Chairman to forthwith put the Question, because then decisions would be the act of the House. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not press the words "or he may decline to propose the Question thereupon to the House," and as a matter of form he moved their omission.
    Amendment proposed, in line 6, to leave out from the word "Chair" to the end of the Question.—(Mr. Henry H Fowler.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, there was a Standing Order at the present moment
    1714
    which enabled the Speaker or the Chairman of Committees to put such Motions contemplated by the Rule to the House or to the Committee, as the case might be, forthwith. It was hardly reasonable that the House should be called upon to endure the repeated Motions which the Rules at present admitted of, to report Progress or that the Chairman do leave the Chair, upon which Divisions must take place whether the Chairman was of opinion that such Motions were really an abuse of the Rules of the House or not. He urged the adoption of this Rule not on behalf of the Government, but on behalf of the House itself. He was convinced that neither the Speaker nor the Chairman could exercise the authority which was sought to be placed in his hands so as to abuse his authority. It seemed to him essential that this authority should rest with the Speaker or the Chairman when there was an attempt to move these repeated Motions evidently for the purpose of obstruction or of annoyance, or of delaying the progress of the Business of the House. In the opinion of the Government, it was one which might very well be entertained by the House.
    MR. C. S. PARKERsaid, he remembered quite well the way in which hon. Members had been marched through the Lobbies in consequence of these successive Motions, but he thought the right hon. Gentleman forgot that if they carried the Rule that stood a little further down on the Paper—namely, the Rule which enabled the Speaker or the Chairman to put a Question and to have it decided without sending Members through the Lobbies—much less time would be wasted. The Speaker or the Chairman could call upon Members who challenged his decision to rise in their places, and in the course of two minutes the question would be settled. With such protection it seemed unnecessary to give power to the Chair to decline to put any Question.
    MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, it was quite evident that the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury had forgotten his own Rule, number 9, in pursuance of which Divisions need not necessarily take place upon the Motions contemplated by this Rule. Under Rule 9 the Speaker or the Chairman would be able to ascertain the sense of the House by calling upon

    1715
    Members to rise in their places, and therefore it was asking too much that the power should be vested in the Chair of declining to put a Question at all.
    MR. F. S. POWELLsaid, it must be borne in mind that under the new Rules of Procedure they were practically to finish Business at 12 o'clock. It seemed to him that unless there was some such Rule as this, a Motion for Adjournment might be made a few minutes before 12 o'clock night after night, simply for the purpose of preventing the Motion of the day being put from the Chair.
    MR. CREMERsaid, that he should divide the House on the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman, even if he had to go into the Lobby alone. It was true that the existing Rule had been very much abused; but, at the same time, the preservation of some of the very few liberties of the people of London was due to its use. It was now many years ago since he sat in the Strangers' Gallery, and listened to a debate in which a Tory Government introduced a Bill which aimed at shutting the people out from the right of meeting in Hyde Park. The measure was introduced, if he mistook not, by Mr. Gathorne Hardy; and it was only by the exercise of their powers in the House, by a very determined minority, that the Bill was defeated. Mr. John S. Mill and a handful of sturdy Radicals pledged themselves to use all the Forms of the House to defeat that very obnoxious measure. If they had not done so, the Bill would have passed, and the people of London would have been deprived of a right, which they had enjoyed from time immemorial. The result would have been something like a revolution in London. He gave the proposal before the House his most unqualified opposition.
    SIR ROBERT FOWLERsaid, he could refer to another instance, of which the hon. Member who had just spoken would probably take a different view. He remembered the time, about 1870, when Mr. Hibbert, whose absence from the House both Parties regretted, brought in a Bill to enable those who had taken Orders and afterwards renounced them to become Members of the House. The Bill was opposed by a strong Opposition; 12 Divisions were taken on Motions for the
    1716
    adjournment of the debate and the adjournment of the House, and the Sitting was prolonged until 5 o'clock in the morning. The hon. Gentleman opposite wanted to see that system of opposition continued. He (Sir Robert Fowler), however, did not think it was a good system, and should cordially support the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman.
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, this was a question for the House itself. As he had already stated, the only desire of the Government was to prevent needless obstruction, for it was certain that during the last Session of Parliament, and many previous Sessions, there had been great waste of time through Motions for the adjournment of the debate, for reporting Progress, for the Chairman leaving the Chair, and for the adjournment of the House, being made one after the other, and all with the same result, and in defiance of the vote of the majority. Each of these Divisions occupied a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes, so that necessarily a great deal of time was wasted. Under the new Rule for closing all Opposed Business at 12 o'clock, if this obstruction were practised at half-past 11 at night, it might have the effect of preventing the House from arriving at decisions it was anxious to arrive at. Therefore, it seemed to him quite reasonable that Mr. Speaker or the Chairman of Committees should have power—if he believed that a Motion for Adjournment was made purely for the purpose of delay, and if he had already had an opportunity of ascertaining the views of the House by a Division— to decline to put the Question. If Rule IX. were accepted by the House, it would lessen the evil to which he called attention, but would not entirely remove it. Members would have to rise in their places, and upon Mr. Speaker would be placed the responsibility of saying whether there should be a Division or not when Motions were repeated again and again, however distinctly the opinion of the House might have been ascertained. The House should not be compelled to reconsider the same question over and over again at the instance of any Member who might chose to submit a dilatory Motion.
    SIR GEORGE TREVELYANsaid, that considering

    1717
    what great—although, he must say, advantageous—innovations they had been introducing into their Procedure, it was extremely important that they should introduce as few new principles as possible. This would be entirely a new principle to give Mr. Speaker and the Chairman of Committees power to decline to propose a Question to the House or Committee. Had sufficient reason been shown for the adoption of this new principle? He had listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who had conducted these debates with so much care, and to the interpolations of the right hon. Gentleman who sat on the left of the Leader of the House, whose views were always of a practical character (Mr. Ritchie), and he had come to the conclusion that no sufficient reason had been shown. For what was the argument? It appeared to be that these vexatious Motions for Adjournment would be frequently repeated. But that was what they could not be now that the House had adopted the closure Rule. The Speaker would also be able to call on hon. Members who supported a vexatious or frivolous Motion to rise in their places, and could thus obviate the loss of time caused by a Division. While they were right to adopt new principles where they were desirable, he thought this was a Rule too much, and one which did not find favour with the House as a means for carrying out that at which they were all aiming— namely, the shortening of the debates and the making of them more practical.
    SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, it appeared to him that there might be certain circumstances under which it might not be desirable that the closure should be moved, and the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury offered a desirable via media. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would persist in the Motion.
    MR. BUCHANANsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, in the remarks he had made, had defended the retention of the words, on the ground that Mr. Speaker would only decline to put the Question when Motions for Adjournment had been frequently made. But there was nothing in the Rule, as it stood, to show that Mr. Speaker or the Chairman of Committees was to have that consideration in his
    1718
    mind; and the House, he thought, ought to be very slow indeed to adopt such a novel proposal as that one, which, so far as he knew, was absolutely without precedent. If a proposal were made in accordance with the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House a few moments ago, he thought the House would be disposed to look more favourably on the Rule.
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he must remind the hon. and learned Member for West Edinburgh (Mr. Buchanan) that there was a precedent for the proposal in the Rules laid upon the Table by a former Speaker when Urgency was voted on the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone). The third Rule, agreed to on the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman, was to the effect that Mr. Speaker might either decline to put a Motion for Adjournment, if, in his judgment, it was made with obstructive intent, or might put it from the Chair forthwith.
    MR. PARNELLsaid, he thought that some of these Rules, especially this one, had been framed without regard to Rules they had already passed—in particular the Rule making the grave and radical change in their Procedure that the discussion of Opposed Business should terminate at 12 o'clock. The argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had been based on the allegation that repeated Motions for reporting Progress and for the adjournment of the House and of the debate had been made last Session, and in recent Sessions, under circumstances which called for the application of such a Rule as this. Well, they had now stopped all Opposed Business at 12 o'clock, consequently the inducement to make such Motions had ceased; and he affirmed, as a fact which he believed would not be contradicted, that only after half-past 12 o'clock had such Motions been made in recent Sessions.' He did not think the right hon. Gentleman could mention a single example of a Motion for the adjournment of the debate or to report Progress having been made last Session, or in recent Sessions, after half-past 12 o'clock. The whole case of the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, fell to the ground, since the argument he had used to recommend his Rule to the House was evidently a non-

    1719
    existent one. Why did the right hon. Gentleman seek to provide in this Rule a remedy for an abuse which another Rule had caused to cease to exist? He (Mr. Parnell) must say the proposed Rule was not worth the candle which was consumed in discussing it, for it would not save the Government, or any section of the House, any time when it had been adopted. The right hon. Gentleman, however, had hinted or suggested that some new practice might grow up in the House as regarded such Motions as these at half-past 11 o'clock, or at some period when the consideration of Opposed Business was about to cease; but surely the time to provide a remedy would be when such a practice did rise up. Why should not the right hon. Gentleman wait to see if these Motions were approximated by the hour he supposed they would be, before rushing in with a brand new Rule to check a practice which had never existed? He (Mr. Parnell) considered it a very grave thing to interfere with the right of Members of the House to address questions, perfectly in Order in other respects, to the consideration of the House or Committee.
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he attached a great deal of importance to these matters of Procedure. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Sir George Trevelyan) seemed to think that the proposed Rule was unnecessary, as the House would probably accept Rule IX.; but, as a matter of fact, the two Rules were distinct, Rule IX. Being framed for the purpose not of enabling Mr. Speaker or the Chairman to arrest debate, but of saving Members the trouble of going into the Lobby after debate. There was an immense difference between the two. The Rule under consideration was to facilitate the progress of a Bill through the Committee or Report stage. It dealt with frivolous Motions, whereas Rule IX. related to vexatious Divisions. He thought it would be of the greatest possible advantage for Mr. Speaker or the Chairman to have the power of saying whether or not a Motion for Adjournment was one, which should be put. It was true they now had the closure; but that was a tremendous apparatus to bring into use for the closing of a debate which, according to the general sense of the House, should be closed summarily.
    1720
    He (Lord Randolph Churchill) trusted the right hon. Baronet (Sir George Trevelyan), who hitherto had shown so much common sense in these matters, would see the difference between these two Rules, and would admit that a Motion for the application of the closure was not a sufficient remedy for the evil, to meet which the proposal under discussion was brought forward.
    SIR GEORGE TREVELYANsaid, that the only part of the Rule he objected to was that which allowed Mr. Speaker and the Chairman to decline to put the Question. It might be amended in that respect, if desired.
    Question put.
    The House divided: — Ayes 214; Noes 112: Majority 102.—(Div. List, No. 22.)
    Main Question put.
    Resolved, That, if Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman of a Committee of the whole House, shall be of opinion that a Motion for the Adjournment of a Debate, or of the House, during any Debate, or that the Chairman do report Progress, or do leave the Chair, is an abuse of the Rules of the House, he may forthwith put the Question thereupon from the Chair, or he may decline to propose the Question thereupon to the House.

    VI.—GOVERNMENT BUSINESS.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH)said, he now had to move Rule VI., the object of which was to enable the Government on Government nights to arrange the Business as they thought fit. He thought the House would agree that it was only reasonable that the Government should have power to arrange the Business on Government nights as they thought fit, so as to give facilities for any Motion being brought on which they might deem fit.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That, on days on which Government "business has priority, the Government may arrange such Government business, whether Orders of the Day or Notices of Motions, in such order as they may think fit." — (Mr. W. H. Smith.)
    MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, that the Rule would not enable the Government to give precedence to

    1721
    a Motion moved by a private Member.
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, that if the Government desired to give a private Member an opportunity of bringing forward a Bill or a Motion on a Government night, the House should have an opportunity of expressing an opinion on the arrangement.
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he wanted to point out that if the Government gave up a night to a private Member for a Bill, that Bill would become Government Business.
    THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS (Mr. COURTNEY)said, that under Standing Order 36 the Government could put down a private Member's Bill first on the list on a Monday or Thursday, and treat it as Government Business.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Resolved, That, on days on which Government business has priority, the Government may arrange such Government business, whether Orders of the Day or Notices of Motions, in such order as they may think fit.

    VII.—COMMITTEES OF THE WHOLE HOUSE.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH),in rising to move the adoption of the next Rule, said, its object was to prevent a repetition of the discussion of the principle of a Bill on the Order that Mr. Speaker do leave the Chair. It had been found that the Motion that Mr. Speaker do leave the Chair was greatly abused, and there was a general agreement that a second reading debate should not occur twice over.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That whenever an Order of the Day is read for the House to resolve itself into Committee (not being a Committee to consider a Message from the Crown, or the Committee of Supply, or of Ways and Means), Mr. Speaker shall leave the Chair without putting any Question and the House shall thereupon resolve itself into such Committee, unless Notice of an Instruction thereto has been given, when such Instruction shall be first disposed of."—(Mr. W. H. Smith.)
    MR. SHAW LEFEVREasked if the Rule was to apply in the case of a Bill which had gone through Committee pro formâ and had been greatly changed by the Member in charge of it?
    MR. BRYCEalso asked whether the Rule would apply to a Bill sent down from a Select Committee? He apprehended that many changes might be effected in a Bill by a Select Committee, and he thought there should be some opportunity of discussing thorn, because the Bill might be sensibly different from what it had been when read a second time.
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he thought that whatever changes were made in the Bill by a Select Committee, they would be consistent with the principle of the Bill. If any opportunity of discussion in such a case were desired, the third reading would afford it.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Resolved, That whenever an Order of the Day is read for the House to resolve itself into Committee (not being a Committee to consider a Message from the Crown, or the Committee of Supply, or of Ways and Means), Mr. Speaker shall leave the Chair without putting any Question, and the House shall thereupon resolve itself into such Committee, unless Notice of an Instruction thereto has been given, when such Instruction shall be first disposed of.

    VIII.—AMENDMENTS ON REPORT.
    Resolved, That upon the Report stage of any Bill no Amendment may be proposed, which could not have been proposed in Committee without an Instruction from the House.—(Mr. W. H. Smith.)

    IX. — DIVISIONS.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH)said, the object of the Rule he would now move was to obviate the necessity for Divisions in certain cases. It would be recollected that in previous Sessions numerous Divisions had been taken in which there were comparatively very few Members on one side and an almost overwhelming number on the other. A serious loss of valuable time was involved in that practice, hence the proposed Rule. It was obvious that the Rule would not be put

    1723
    in force, unless the numbers challenging a Division were so small as to render it unnecessary to appoint Tellers.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman, may, at his discretion, take the Vote of the House or Committee, by calling upon the Members who support, and who challenge his decision, successively to rise in their places; and he shall thereupon, as he thinks fit, either declare the determination of the House or Committee, or name Tellers for a Division."— (Mr. W. H. Smith.)
    MR. HENRY H. FOWLERsaid, he proposed to move an Amendment in this Rule which would practically carry out one of the recommendations of the Committee on Procedure presided over by the noble Marquess the Member for the Rossendale Division of Lancashire (the Marquess of Hartington) which sat two years ago. That recommendation, while reserving the right of the Speaker or the Chairman at his discretion to call upon the Members who supported a Motion to rise in their places, put a limitation on that power by declaring that if the minority exceeded a certain figure then a Division should take place. Under the existing Rule, on a Motion to report Progress or to adjourn, the Speaker or the Chairman might call on the Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and if less than 20 stood up then a Division was not necessary. His Amendment was to the effect that if the minority who stood up were more than 40 then a Division should be taken. If the Rule as proposed by the Leader of the House had been confined simply to dilatory Motions, or to Motions of Adjournment, he did not know that he should have pressed his Amendment; but as it would apply to any Motion whatever before the House, he thought they should have regard to the interests of their constituents, who had a right to know how their Members voted. In past times many great and important questions had been introduced into the House which at first had very small minorities in their favour; and it therefore ought not to be put out of the power of constituencies to know how their Representatives voted on matters in which they were deeply interested. He thought that where the minority
    1724
    was more than 40 there ought to be a Division taken, and he now moved his Amendment accordingly.
    Amendment proposed,
    In line 4, after the word "and," to omit the words "he shall thereupon, as he thinks fit, either," and insert the words "if the minority be less than 40 he shall at his discretion."— (Mr. H. H. Fowler.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he thought that the extremely practical mind of his right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) would not be disposed, on further consideration of the matter, to insist upon the Amendment.
    MR. SPEAKER: I see that the hon. Member for South Louth (Mr. T. P. Gill) has an Amendment upon the Paper which will come in before that of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. T. P. GILLsaid, he had put his Amendment upon the Paper, because he desired to have a statement from the Government as to whether it was intended by this Rule that the Speaker should count one by one the Members rising in their places, and register the number of Members voting for or against the Question, or whether what would take place would simply be that a mass of Members would rise on one side and a mass of Members would rise on the other side, and then the Speaker would declare which side had won the day? In his (Mr. Gill's) opinion, the latter mode of ascertaining the sense of the House would be most unsatisfactory, and would lead to a great deal of dissatisfaction. On the other hand, if the Speaker or the Chairman was required to count one by one the Members who rose in their places, it would go a long way to relieve the ambiguous and somewhat dangerous tendency of the Rule. If the counting of the Members was not implied in the Rule, he should certainly move his Amendment, at any rate as far as the first clause of it went.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "it be in the discretion of Mr. Speaker or the Chairman to take the Vote of the House in the following manner: — He shall, on his decision being challenged, forthwith order the doors to be closed, whereupon he shall call upon the Members who support or who challenge his decision successively to rise in their places, and he shall proceed to count them one by one in an audible voice. At the conclusion of such count he shall declare the determination of the House or Committee. Provided always, that on any Member declaring himself doubtful of the accuracy of such count, and calling for a Division, Mr. Speaker or the Chairman shall name Tellers for a Division."— (Mr. T. P. Gill.)
    Question proposed,
    "That the words ' Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman, may, at his discretion, take the Vote of the House or Committee by calling upon the Members who support, and who challenge his decision, successively to rise in their places; and,' stand part of the Question."
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, the hon. Gentleman would see that the effect of the Amendment would be to give any hon. Member declaring himself doubtful of the accuracy of the counting the power of calling for a Division.
    MR. T. P. GILLsaid, he would not press the last clause of his Amendment if the first part met with the approval of the House.
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, that in that case the value of the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman consisted in this—that the Speaker or the Chairman was to count in an audible voice. He could not doubt but that the Speaker or the Chairman would, in all cases, only declare the results of a difference of opinion when he felt himself satisfied as to those results. The hon. Member would see that if the Speaker or the Chairman was to have this responsibility placed upon him, it was not necessary to prescribe precisely the method by which he should arrive at his decision.
    MR. T. P. GILLsaid, he would ask the permission of the House to point out that what was not provided by the Rule was that the number of the voters should be declared by the Speaker or Chairman. That was what he wished to procure. The Chair might declare that "the Ayes have it, "or" the Noes have it." There might be a strong division of opinion, and it would be an invidious thing on the part of the Speaker to say that "the Ayes have it," or "the Noes have it," when a great
    1726
    section of the House might desire to know what the exact result was. He believed there was no Legislature in the world which had such a Rule as this. He hoped the Rule would not be accepted hastily, and that the House would make some provision for registering the numbers, if a considerable section of hon. Members desired it.
    MR. PARNELLsaid, he thought that the Amendment was a very reasonable one, and he could not understand why the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. H, Smith) should resist it. It appeared to be clearly within the contemplation of the right hon. Gentleman that the Speaker should make a count of the numbers on one side or the other, in order to ascertain what the opinion of the House was. In what other way could the opinion of the House be arrived at, except by counting the numbers for or against a particular question? He presumed that the new method proposed by the right hon. Gentleman was proposed from a mechanical point of view for the purpose of rendering the mechanism of counting the vote more simple than at present. But was it to be tolerated that the House or the country was not to know how many Members were in favour of or against any particular proposition? By the Rule as it stood, they were told that Members were not to declare themselves individually in favour or against a proposition, and for the first time in the history of Parliament the country was not to know what the voice of its Representatives was with respect to any particular proposition. He thought the right hon. Gentleman on reflection, would admit that, having obtained eight Rules up to the present time with the most unexampled facility on his part, the time had now arrived to yield a little to the Opposition on this matter. Neither the efficiency of Parliament as a whole, nor the power of the majority, would be injured by some slight concession on this exceedingly drastic Rule. He looked upon it as being the most offensive Rule yet proposed in Parliament, because it placed the minority in the position of standing up in their places in order to be jeered and laughed at by the majority. The Government deprived the minority of the right of registering their names and opinions on the questions debated, and they also deprived the minority of the

    1727
    right of letting the country know how many Members voted one way or the other. What Rule could go further than that? He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would see that some concession to the Opposition would be seemly on his part at this juncture, and that he should not, relying upon the facility with which he had obtained these Rules, stand fast to the ipsissima verba of the original, but concede what was reasonably asked. He was precluded from going into the other question as to whether there should be any right to take a Division at all where the minority amounted to the substantial number of 40; but when the Amendment bearing upon that point was proposed he would have something to say. At present, they had this Rule before them in all its nakedness. There was no provision even that the bells should be rung, and that the Members who were interested in the question should be summoned to take part in the Division, or to stand up in their places. There was no provision such as that which was made in the Rule of 1885, directed to a much less important matter —Divisions on dilatory Motions. He thought that as they were going beyond mere dilatory Motions, they ought to consent to insert some safeguard in this stringent and drastic Rule, so as to secure if the time should ever come, which Heaven forbid, when they might not have the proceedings of the House governed and directed by the same impartiality which now distinguished them, they should have some safeguard to secure that this Rule might not be opposed even by the authority of the House, a thing which the experience of other Legislative Assemblies in regard to the very matter they wore now discussing had shown to be quite possible.
    LORDS RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: said, it seemed to him that the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had not carefully studied the Amendment he supported. The hon. Gentleman believed that the Amendment only compelled the Speaker to count the minority; but, if he read the Amendment, he would find it compelled the Speaker to count both the minority and the majority. The Divisions to be guarded against were Divisions in which there was a large number, an overwhelming number, of the House on one
    1728
    side, and a very small number on the other side. There must be for the Rule to operate an enormous majority on one side and a very small minority on the other. The hon. Member (Mr. T. P. Gill), by his Amendment, called upon the Speaker to count not only the minority, which might be from 10 to 40, but to count the majority, which might be from 200 to 500. The Amendment in its present form was not one, which could be put in force. The Speaker could not count a majority of 500, or even of 250, for he did not think the Benches on this side or on that would hold 250 Members. He had a suggestion to make to the House and to the Government on this subject, but before making it he wished to say he thought the Rule was a most valuable one, the most valuable one which appeared upon the Paper if they were really aiming at expedition in their Business. Divisions took up so much time, and were so wearisome, that, undoubtedly, private Members had it in their power to inflict an amount of labour, trouble, pain, and annoyance upon the House. He did not think private Members ought to have such power. He quite admitted that under the Rule the House was at the discretion of the Chair; but did anyone suppose for a moment that the Speaker or the Chairman would ever put the Rule in operation, except when there was a marked and overwhelming disparity of Members on one side or the other, and, more than that, except when the opposition partook of an obstructive character? Now, he came to a point raised by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), and raised to a certain extent by his right hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler)—namely, that there ought to be some means of recording the numbers of the minority. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton would have the names of the minority published whenever the minority numbered 40. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) did not like that, for he did not think it rested upon any solid foundation. He did not see why a minority of 30 should not have their names published as well as a minority of 40. The suggestion he made to the Government and the House was that, whenever the Rule was put in operation, the Speaker should count the

    1729
    minority, and declare it to the House, so that the public should always know the size of the minority. [An hon. MEMBER: Declare the names?] He would not suggest that; he thought that was going too far. He proposed that this course should be adopted in order that the public might know that the Rule was not being put in force unjustly. The hon. Member (Mr. T. P. Gill) who moved the Amendment said there was no Legislative Assembly in the world where such a Rule as this was in operation. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) had seen the French Assembly and the German Assembly at work. Only the other day he saw the German Assembly in Committee of Supply, and he saw six Divisions—three of them upon important matters—taken by the Members rising in their places; taken in a most expeditious and practical manner. The Chairman called upon the Members to rise in their places; there was a small number on one side, and the proceedings passed off with the greatest possible expedition. He had also seen the same system at work in the French Assembly. He saw it in operation when President Grévy disappointed the Chamber by not tendering his resignation. He heard a Motion made, it was supported by a vast majority of the House and opposed by a few, and, again the decision was taken by the Members rising in their places. Consequently, the hon. Gentleman was not correct in saying the system now proposed by the Government was unknown in other Assemblies. [Mr. T. P. Gill: Were the numbers counted?] The numbers were not counted. The Chairman simply called on the Members to rise, and he decided which way it was. It was obvious which way the decision lay, because there was a vast mass on one side, and a small number on the other. He earnestly pressed the House to adopt this Rule; it was a most important one in regard to the conduct of their Business. The Chair would never think of not allowing a really respectable minority to be brought to the notice of the public. The Rule was entirely aimed at obstructive and frivolous Divisions, which it really ought not to be in the power of Members to put the House to the annoyance of taking. He trusted the Government
    1730
    would consider the suggestion he had made in regard to allowing the Speaker to count the minority and to declare the numbers to the House. Perhaps it would be well to adjourn the consideration of the subject until to-morrow, when, if the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury thought the suggestion a good one, he might bring down words to add to the Rule which might satisfy hon. Gentlemen opposite.
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, the suggestion of the noble Lord would be acceptable to both sides of the House, if in addition to the numbers there could be some means of recording the names of the minority. All great causes had very small beginnings. It was well known that when Wilberforce commenced the battle against slavery he had but a small following. The Repeal of the Corn Laws and the adoption of the Ballot were not in the first instance supported by more than 30 or 40 Members. It was most important that the names of the men who first advocated great reforms should be recorded. His hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Moans (Mr. Courtney) was to be congratulated that he was one of a minority of 18 who voted against the Transvaal War. That Division was on record, and those who formed the minority had every reason to be proud. He was as anxious as any Member of the House to expedite Business, but he thought a minority ought to have the right of walking through the Division Lobby and of recording their names.
    MR. R. T. REIDsaid, he thought that the names of the majority ought to be recorded as well as those of the minority; because the constituents had a right to know how their Members voted. He did not suppose the Rule was likely to operate unjustly, but still it might happen that on some occasions a majority of Members would avail themselves of the Rule for the purpose of destroying a Bill or proposal which they would not do if their names appeared in the Division List. He hoped that if the right hon. Gentleman accepted the suggestion of the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) he would reconsider before to-morrow whether it was possible to

    1731
    enable some machinery to be adopted by which the names of the majority as well of the minority could be recorded.
    MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, that that matter was of great importance, and therefore he would move the adjournment of the debate.
    Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned,"—(Mr. Bradlaugh,)—put, and agreed to.
    Debate adjourned till Tomorrow.

MOTIONS.

  SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Atkinson, Bill to limit the duration of Speeches in Parliament, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Atkinson, Sir John Kennaway, Mr. Maclure, and Mr. Howard Vincent.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 149.]

  PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (SEAMEN'S VOTES) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Atkinson, Bill to enable Master Mariners, Marine Engineers serving-afloat, Seamen, and Fishermen to Vote at Parliamentary Elections by papers in a similar manner to that in which members of Universities Vote at present, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Atkinson, Sir George Baden-Powell, Sir Edward Birkbeck, Mr. Brookfield, Marquess of Carmarthen, Sir James Corry, Sir Donald Currie, Colonel Duncan, Mr. Donkin, Sir Robert Fowler, Mr. Grotrian, Mr. Gourley, Mr. Heneage, Mr. King, Sir Charles Palmer, Sir John Puleston, Sir Albert Rollit, Mr. Thomas Sutherland, Mr. Whitley, Sir Samuel Wilson, and Mr. Cavendish Bentinck.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 150.]

  INTESTATES ESTATES BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Ambrose, Bill to amend the Law relating to the distribution of the Estates of such Intestates as shall die leaving a widow, but no issue, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Ambrose.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 151.]
  House adjourned at Twelve o'clock, Midnight.